"bad, but interesting choices" vs game overs

[khumak]

I'm curious what people think of situations where the player might make an objectively bad decision for a short term personal gain but with major consequences down the road. I haven't seen many games handle this in a way that I'm satisfied with. Most of them if they include that type of thing at all it leads to a game over bad ending or there's just no consequence at all. This is the sort of scenario I'm talking about.

Main character has a friend with a hot wife. This is a legit friend, maybe even your best friend, not just some acquaintance. Some event happens where there's some temptation going on, probably too much alcohol, etc. Long story short, MC gets a chance to bang his buddy's wife. Pretty much everyone would agree that if you want to keep that friend, that's a bad move. But... If you do you get to see a hot scene with MC fucking your buddy's wife. Short term gain. Your friend probably finds out whether you spill the beans or not.

In most games, game over bad ending. But what if the game just continues on but you lose that friend, maybe see his and/or his wife's life spiral into the gutter, and any potential benefit you may have otherwise gained from that friendship is also gone, preferably with significant negative consequences down the road. It's still a scene worth seeing despite being an objectively bad choice. And maybe you just feel like playing the game as a total asshole that day? What do you guys think? You prefer the game over or the downward spiral and a continuation of the game? I like the second option personally.

I find it much more interesting if you have to live with a bad choice without it being game ending. Ideally some of those choices wouldn't be such a clear cut example of good choice vs bad choice.

 

[RanliLabz]

This would be a very good feature - satisfying, interesting, and providing real choices with consequences.

It’s also not very attractive from a development perspective.

Just this one choice creates dozens of additional scenes - the confrontation, the life spiralling, the reactions of other characters to what you’ve done. That eats up quite a lot of dev time for what is non-essential, largely non-sexual content (plus being a major Branch diagram headache!)

Worse, you’ve now got a serious problem - the Buddy character serves a purpose in the mainline story, and now he’s gone. To replace his functions - helper, wingman, information source, plot-mover, etc. - you’ll need to create a whole new Buddy (or at least portion this out among other characters). That means that for a single sex scene, you’ve committed yourself to duplicating every single scene involving the Buddy from that point onwards

From a player perspective, the replay value is now super - but you’re waiting a lot longer for those updates!

 

[khumak]

So in the case of the downward spiral I'd be likely to set it up so that he's an ally if you stay friends with him and don't fuck his wife. Whatever future events happen if he's involved, he's helping you or at worst neutral.

If you DO fuck his wife then in addition to (or instead of) the downward spiral, he becomes a rival and is now actively working against you any time he has the opportunity. So you basically have that choice branch off into 2 threads. I don't think that's overly complex. I agree that if you get too crazy with it you could get bogged down in excessive complexity. In this case basically there will be certain scenes that this guy could be a part of and he'll either be your ally, your rival, or maybe neutral depending on your choices and whether he's really a friend or just sort of ignored. So most of the story line doesn't have to change, just that character's part in it.

The idea I'm going for is basically that I want both choices to be interesting and worth seeing even if one of them is kind of an objectively superior choice. I think there are situations where a game over bad ending could be warranted but I would reserve that for an extreme case. If the example above was such a case maybe the guy goes completely off the rails and murders you. Game over.

Edit: One further note regarding the rival path. IMO this is the sort of back story I really like for a rival. This sets the rival up as a more sympathetic character that's relatable and not just the stereotypical "evil incarnate" sort of rival that too many games use. There's a reason he's your rival. You fucked him over. Whatever he does to you is at least partially deserved. Maybe you're even rooting for the rival.

 

[RanliLabz]

Yes - it would make the game better to have more depth and more choice. (I'd be rooting for the rival unless he did something unforgivable like beat the wife or kill your dog in revenge).

It is a complex undertaking, though. I do some similar branches in my own game - though never to the extent of fundamentally changing the role of a major character. The code's easy enough (if time consuming, especially in testing) - but the imagery really is a pain in the arse!

For some scenes this might be roughly double the work (e.g. which side of the gang-standoff is the buddy/rival on?); for others it might just mean pasting a different expression on his face (e.g. is he glaring or smiling at you during a mutual friend's wedding?)

The question is, whether it's worth so much extra development for an optional non-sexual relationship in an adult game? It seems worth it for dom/sub, ntr/alpha, gay/straight type choices - or where you have to choose between 2 or more main love interests... But I don't know how many players are really in it for your relationship with your best friend.

Personally, I'd have him catch you and straight up murder you if you screwed his wife (for a Game Over). Players get to see the sexual content - and learn a bit more about your friend in the process.

Then I might knock off and play some Heavy Rain

 

[khumak]

There won't be any gay stuff in my games. I would most likely include sex related content on every path, but different. For instance on the "bad path" you fuck his wife and that's the only way you get to see MC fuck his wife and in return he works against you for the whole game. That probably has the effect of making the game harder overall (probably still winnable). On the good path, he helps you out with certain things in the game and you might have an event like a strip club scene or something where you go out and you both get a few lap dances and then head to the back room (separately) for a bj or whatever. You, the player get to see both of course. There could also be some things that are only achieveable with his help that could lead to MC having some other sex scene as a reward for that achievement.

Male characters would only ever be friends or rivals in my game, but I would still want enough backstory to feel like there's a reason they're your friend or rival. If there's no reason then he's just window dressing and might as well not even be there. Having male friends also leaves open plenty of opportunity for you to trade stories with your friend about your exploits. So while MC might not get to bang his buddy's wife on the good path, he'll probably get to see sort of flashback style scenes where his buddy describes what his wife did to him last night... It's an adult game after all, pretty much every girl in the game is gonna be getting fucked by someone even if it's not MC. It may or may not be possible for MC to actually conquer every girl himself and IMO it should be harder if not impossible to get them all in a single play through.

Basically I want the game to have a main plotline and most of the choices branch off in to 2 or at most 3 short paths that diverge and then reconverge back into the main plotline. So the main plot is the same no matter what (potentially with maybe a good or bad ending or something) but all of the different sub plots only diverge for a short time to a scene or series of scenes that is unique to that path and then reconverge back to the main path again. So your choices will still add some unavoidable dialog complexity but there would be plenty of events that aren't really affected by each subpath so your choice for that subpath is irrelevant to a lot of the events.

Personally, I would rather make a shorter, more complex game than a longer, more linear one.

 

[khumak]

Thought I'd give an example from one of my games that I'm considering. So MC has a friend who I haven't even named yet, for now he's just "finance guy". He's an investment banker or something, rich, and married to a gold digger who's cheating on him (unknown to him initially).

MC finds out gold digger is cheating on finance guy pretty early and gets a chance to add his own name to the list if he wants. Regardless whether he does or not, finance guy finds out she's cheating on him. IF MC didn't fuck her he gets a chance to help finance guy catch her in the act with enough evidence to blackmail her into walking away from a divorce with nothing (she wants to take him for every dime).

If MC DID fuck gold digger then he has an option to go break the news in person, both that gold digger is cheating on him and that he sampled the goods as well. At this point finance guy flies into a rage and attacks MC. MC can defend himself in which case finance guy becomes a rival. Or he can take his lumps and let finance guy beat the shit out of him, initially still thinking he's lost a friend but this time still leading to the same blackmail option (finance guy forgives him if he delivers).

So the main plot is the same regardless what happens with finance guy. The difference is the sub plots where MC either got to fuck gold digger or not and whether finance guy is now his friend and ally or his rival. I also have another friend, "nerd guy" who can help MC setting up surveillance equipment if MC is a good enough friend to him, making for more convincing "evidence" for the blackmail. Regardless what you pick, you're going to see gold digger getting pounded left and right. MC may or may not be one of them depending on his choices.

The main plot is actually going to be centered around his relationship with his "girl next door" type of girlfriend. Protecting her from temptation, corruption, bad influences, etc while leaving open tons of options for him to get plenty of action on the side (either with or without her approval). The biggest rival is actually her badgirl best friend who's always trying to drag his girlfriend off for "girls night" or some other temptation.

In any case, most of my sub plots I want to play out similar to my finance guy example where it's kind of a self contained plotline where every choice converges back onto the main story but after showing you a unique and interesting series of events.

 

[Fliptoynk]

not a bad idea if you ask me though it kinda depends if watching their lives go down the gutter is really worth playing. though this could work when you want the mc find the justice he deserve after he was wronged or something...

well... I kinda wanna add that I wish all the games here would have 1 or 2 "not so happy endings" instead of "to be blue balled" per update cuz it's kinda frustrating when yer always left hanging, y'know? aaaaaalwaaaaays...

 

[moskyx]

Thought I'd give an example from one of my games that I'm considering. So MC has a friend who I haven't even named yet, for now he's just "finance guy". He's an investment banker or something, rich, and married to a gold digger who's cheating on him (unknown to him initially).

MC finds out gold digger is cheating on finance guy pretty early and gets a chance to add his own name to the list if he wants. Regardless whether he does or not, finance guy finds out she's cheating on him. IF MC didn't fuck her he gets a chance to help finance guy catch her in the act with enough evidence to blackmail her into walking away from a divorce with nothing (she wants to take him for every dime).

If MC DID fuck gold digger then he has an option to go break the news in person, both that gold digger is cheating on him and that he sampled the goods as well. At this point finance guy flies into a rage and attacks MC. MC can defend himself in which case finance guy becomes a rival. Or he can take his lumps and let finance guy beat the shit out of him, initially still thinking he's lost a friend but this time still leading to the same blackmail option (finance guy forgives him if he delivers).

So the main plot is the same regardless what happens with finance guy. The difference is the sub plots where MC either got to fuck gold digger or not and whether finance guy is now his friend and ally or his rival. I also have another friend, "nerd guy" who can help MC setting up surveillance equipment if MC is a good enough friend to him, making for more convincing "evidence" for the blackmail. Regardless what you pick, you're going to see gold digger getting pounded left and right. MC may or may not be one of them depending on his choices.

The main plot is actually going to be centered around his relationship with his "girl next door" type of girlfriend. Protecting her from temptation, corruption, bad influences, etc while leaving open tons of options for him to get plenty of action on the side (either with or without her approval). The biggest rival is actually her badgirl best friend who's always trying to drag his girlfriend off for "girls night" or some other temptation.

In any case, most of my sub plots I want to play out similar to my finance guy example where it's kind of a self contained plotline where every choice converges back onto the main story but after showing you a unique and interesting series of events.

Actually you have just doubled up your work, as you'll have to write and render two alternative versions of that subplot: one with that guy being your ally, one being your rival; instead of advancing your main plot. Take this approach fo a few scenes and your branching will grow exponentially just to keep track of past choices without getting continuity issues. So yeah, your game will end being considerably shorter story-wise than other in which that dick move would lead to a game over. For the same amount of work it will be wider, but shorter. And it could bring you way more headaches than a basic, more linear story. But if that's what you want and you think you are able to get it done, go for it. It's your game after all

 

[desmosome]

Yup, this type game altering decisions brings with it a lot of headache to implement. Adding too much chaos to plot centric characters can lead to exponential increases in work load. The most serious issue being increased rendering count whenever that character needs to be featured.

There are some tricks that can be used to alleviate this somewhat, but everything needs to be planned out well in advance.

I actually like bad endings, but it's rarely implemented in a satisfying manner. Bad ending should always bring with it a sex scene (sex + mini epilogue is even better). Otherwise, there really isn't a point to it. This can accommodate some darker scenes like NTR, rape, mind break, etc, without destroying the characters going forward.

Another thing devs often do is to limit the changes in characters to just the dialogue and writing as much as possible. Lust vs love or changes in MC's alignment can often be portrayed by just adjusting the text. The prime example is Our Fate (rip). The MC's alignment is picked at the start and it drastically alters the MC's character, but pretty much the entire game still uses one set of renders when showing the MC.

You can also introduce big choices if you can limit the variations to certain segments that always go back to a common node. If we take your example, cheating with the best friend's girl secretly will make things much more manageable. We can have the added scenes with her, but the normal story portions and common nodes can be handled mostly with adjusted dialogues (don't even need to adjust dialogues in some scenes).

 

[wittnotyoyo]

I actually like bad endings, but it's rarely implemented in a satisfying manner. Bad ending should always bring with it a sex scene (sex + mini epilogue is even better). Otherwise, there really isn't a point to it. This can accommodate some darker scenes like NTR, rape, mind break, etc, without destroying the characters going forward.

I wouldn't mind a completed game with a sex scene + mini epilogue for bad endings or if there were very few of these endings in the game. For games in development that are released incrementally these bad endings split the devs focus and takes time away from the actual game.

Power Vacuum is the only game I have tried that has a lot of those sorts of endings. It's ok but the game could be much further along without them. It also leads to all the same bickering as in romance/NTR split path games.

A game built around robust bad endings could be interesting. An NTR game where if you let things go too far too fast leading to extreme game overs could be interesting. I don't think adding darker bad ending scenes fits well with a game that is otherwise lighter in tone.

 

[desmosome]

Yea, in a standard renpy romance setting, these bad endings can seem out of place and maybe even come off as pandering. There are games that actually focus on these bad endings though. There is a core story they want to tell, where the good guys make it out relatively unscathed and triumph over evil. But that is boring with vanilla scenes. So all the appeal in the porn aspect comes from the bad ends where the heroine gets raped and stuff. The best example of this is Witch of Steel Annerose. The vanilla route is not bad honestly, but if that was the only thing in the game, it wouldn't be a Lilith game and disappoint all the fans lol.

 

[khumak]

Yup, this type game altering decisions brings with it a lot of headache to implement. Adding too much chaos to plot centric characters can lead to exponential increases in work load. The most serious issue being increased rendering count whenever that character needs to be featured.

There are some tricks that can be used to alleviate this somewhat, but everything needs to be planned out well in advance.

I actually like bad endings, but it's rarely implemented in a satisfying manner. Bad ending should always bring with it a sex scene (sex + mini epilogue is even better). Otherwise, there really isn't a point to it. This can accommodate some darker scenes like NTR, rape, mind break, etc, without destroying the characters going forward.

Another thing devs often do is to limit the changes in characters to just the dialogue and writing as much as possible. Lust vs love or changes in MC's alignment can often be portrayed by just adjusting the text. The prime example is Our Fate (rip). The MC's alignment is picked at the start and it drastically alters the MC's character, but pretty much the entire game still uses one set of renders when showing the MC.

You can also introduce big choices if you can limit the variations to certain segments that always go back to a common node. If we take your example, cheating with the best friend's girl secretly will make things much more manageable. We can have the added scenes with her, but the normal story portions and common nodes can be handled mostly with adjusted dialogues (don't even need to adjust dialogues in some scenes).

I don't mind bad endings if it feels justified but a lot of games put them in there for fairly arbitrary and sometimes even random decisions. Open this door, the plot continues. Open this other door, game over. No prior info about what's behind either door. Or they have situations where doing something bad can yield a naughty scene or too but take it 1 step too far and it's game over. Basically winds up as a frustrating excersize in save scumming to see all of the "bad but naughty" scenes without getting the bad ending and having to start over.

The kind of game over where there's enough info leading up to the decision where you know this bad choice is NOT going to end well but you have reason to think it will be interesting enough to want to see it anyway I'm fine with. Using my finance guy example where he murders you for instance I'd be fine with. You poked the bear. You knew he was a bear beforehand, but you poked him anyway and you got bit.

I agree that my plan adds complexity and maybe it adds more than I think it will. If so I may have to scale back my ambitions a bit but I'm pretty sure at least some of my sub plots are going to end up playing out that way even if it means a shorter game. I want something with a decent amount of replay value and I want the player to be able to figure things out as they go and work through bad (or at least suboptimal) choices without needing a walkthrough and without having to start over.

 

[dudelookingforstuff]

While I can understand bad ends, and god knows I LOVE writing them (I'm a fan of writing fucked up endings for horrors and stuff, but dabble in porn bad ends), they often annoy me. It's like "Okay, so let me get this right... I have max strength, max will, max smarts, max speed, max fucking everything, the best weapon and armor and equipment in the game, but because I got a boner ONE during THIS fight... I'm fucked to death? REALLY!?!?!". It always annoyed the tits off of me, especially in CoC or TiTs where your lust bar can fill up outside of combat and then you step into battle and, bam, dead, no autosave, reload your last save from 2 hours ago mother fucker.

I prefer consequences, I feel like bad ends are a cop out for when you can't write a good continuation or when you're railroading players down a certain path. Like when you're screaming at the TV cos a soap opera character hasn't taken the 300 chances of killing a blackmailer because it's leading up to this big dramatic showdown where 3 other characters die for no reason other than they wanted the actors off the show. I'm actually doing a continuation in an RPG I'm idly working on. Basically, there's no bad ends, just bad choices. Good and bad are subjective, after all, what you think is innocent could bite you in the ass. I even tried doing it with another project of mine, but I lost steam with that (it was all about who you picked to help you, as picking some locked out others. A big thing I had was if you abandoned everyone and betrayed them all, one of them who take you down before you escaped, escaping with the people you left to rot while leaving YOU to rot instead. Kinda a reverse hero situation, where the villain is actually you).

So yeah, consequences are better. There was this porn game where you could stop this demon fucking your girlfriend or let him. Obviously, porn, yay, but if you did you lost cos she became his slave. I mean, come on! I just wanted to see a giant demon dick in her butt, how am I the bad guy!?