Since I’ve a boring day at work, I might as well do a bit of wall of text’ing.
As a part of my sekkrit eternity project, I’ve been having a look at different ways to handle branching storylines and parallel storylines. The key question that comes to my mind is that how to make further replays of the game worthwhile, i.e. to ensure that there is no incessant repetition and the player is able to immerse themselves despite the fact that they’ve already accumulated prior knowledge on the happenings of the game through previous playthrough(s).
Inspired by the Sengoku Rance LP, I’ll use examples from Japanese visual novels to illustrate the dilemma.
The thing that quite often puts me off when it comes to successive play troughs is that I am no longer able to relate to the characters in the same way since I’ve already cleared the game once. A good example comes from Tokimeki Check-in!, a hentai dating game by Crowd. There is one minor character that throughout the game displays his positive side and is shown to be a kind and a caring person. However, there is a single bad ending that reveals that he is actually a sadistic rapist. So after reaching that bad ending, I no longer was able to regard him in the same manner throughout the successive play troughs. And the fact that in other branches of the story he is displayed in entirely different manner is very irking – especially since we’re talking about a visual novel where the player cannot influence the storyline that much.
Fate/Stay Night by Type Moon is one of the most ambitious approaches when it comes to branching storylines. Not because it has so many of them (there are three alternative major story branches) – but due to the way they handle the dilemma of the gap between what the player knows and what the character the player plays knows.
The story branches in Fate/Stay Night are meant to be played in linear order, successively. This limits the player’s ability to influence the storyline to a degree, especially since the first storyline only has one possible ending (and tons of “bad endings” that you can run into). Since the first play through takes about 15-20 hours, completing the second unlocked storyline seemed like a massive chore to me. The story had reached a conclusive, albeit bitter-sweet, ending on the first play trough and many loose ends were wrapped conclusively. On the other hand, even if the main characters of the storyline were dealt thoroughly, some of the other characters and their fates were left as mysteries.
So motivated to at least discover those few blanks, I took another try at the second branch of the story. I was a bit worried on my motivation level, since a good 5 hours of the first play trough were spent on building up the foundation of the story and dealing with the doubts of the player character. To my surprise the second play trough took quite radical turn.
Firstly, many of the minor characters that were eliminated from the story early on actually took more prominent role in the second play trough. The events familiar from the first play trough still occurred early on, but ended in different outcome. And to make things even weirder, the main villain of the first play trough was eliminated like an afterthought.
Secondly, the player character himself changed. On the first play through the character was more insecure and undetermined. On the second play trough he has more confidence and more inherit knowledge, as to reflect the fact that the player too knows more about the storyline.
In my opinion Fate/Stay Night succeeds in creating a superb replayability value through those design choices. The successive play troughs of the same core storyline take notice of the fact that the player has prior knowledge and actually use it to mislead the player on successive play troughs. The player has certain expectations towards the upcoming events, but the outcome can be radically different on the second play trough. And the designers of the storyline have taken to account the fact the player will have already developed certain level of attachment towards the main characters from the first play trough and take advantage of this fact (the successive play troughs involve more cruelty directed towards the main heroines, as example).
Sengoku Rance takes another approach to branching storyline. Since the branches are essentially smaller sub-stories, the player has greater freedom. Like in Fate/Stay Night, the replayability comes from the fact that certain characters will be eliminated in the course of the game and that there is limited amount of time so you won’t be able to “clear” all the characters.
Rance’s approach limits the amount that the individual sub-plots can be integrated in the central storyline (though some overlapping exists) but the sheer multitude of choices makes up for this. On other hand Fate/Stay Night manages to create coherent story from the three different branches, while keeping the redundancy to minimum. Sengoku Rance’s approach gives the player greater choice, while Fate/Stay Night creates stronger overall story (since all the elements support each other).
A common approach with multiple storylines that I’ve seen is the concept of unlocking “true endings”. Probably the most notorious example of this is dating game Clannad After Story. There is quite a major dramatic turn of events in the game. By completing all the side-stories in the storyline, the player can unlock a “true ending” where this major event is rewritten on a more positive note. While the true ending provides much more satisfying way to end the game, it also diminishes the game experience. The alternative reality where the most of the game was set in loses its value.
The PS2 version of Fate/Stay Night also has additional “final ending” that can be unlocked by completing all the five different endings of the game. What Fate/Stay Night does different, is the fact that it doesn’t rewrite the events of the other storylines. The bittersweet, “no happily ever after” ending of the first play trough remains, but the player is instead shown a glimpse on what might come after. The game doesn’t take the easy way out by removing the drama of the ending, but rather expands the story to show what might lie at the end of the life of the player character.
So in conclusion, what would I like to take from the different ways that parallel/branching storylines have been handled in the examples I gave?
- The central storyline approach of Fate/Stay Night
- Multiple perspectives to the central storyline as main branches of the story
- The extent of player choice of Rance (i.e. making the storylines playable in any order)
- The practice of making sure that accumulating player knowledge does not disrupt the way that he/she sees certain characters on successive play troughs (no common main antagonist that is revealed at the end of the story)
- Handling overlapping events in the storylines in a way that still surprises the player and takes to account his accumulating knowledge from previous play troughs
- Providing some incentive to finish the alternative branches of the story, whilst not rewriting the previous events to achieve a happy ending.
So what about you guys, how do you see branching/parallel storylines. Do you have examples of other games that handle the gap of what is known to player and what is known to player character well?
P.S. Rance’s storyline is quite epic by now: http://www.mediafire.com/?ud4m2u2ytih
As a part of my sekkrit eternity project, I’ve been having a look at different ways to handle branching storylines and parallel storylines. The key question that comes to my mind is that how to make further replays of the game worthwhile, i.e. to ensure that there is no incessant repetition and the player is able to immerse themselves despite the fact that they’ve already accumulated prior knowledge on the happenings of the game through previous playthrough(s).
Inspired by the Sengoku Rance LP, I’ll use examples from Japanese visual novels to illustrate the dilemma.
The thing that quite often puts me off when it comes to successive play troughs is that I am no longer able to relate to the characters in the same way since I’ve already cleared the game once. A good example comes from Tokimeki Check-in!, a hentai dating game by Crowd. There is one minor character that throughout the game displays his positive side and is shown to be a kind and a caring person. However, there is a single bad ending that reveals that he is actually a sadistic rapist. So after reaching that bad ending, I no longer was able to regard him in the same manner throughout the successive play troughs. And the fact that in other branches of the story he is displayed in entirely different manner is very irking – especially since we’re talking about a visual novel where the player cannot influence the storyline that much.
Fate/Stay Night by Type Moon is one of the most ambitious approaches when it comes to branching storylines. Not because it has so many of them (there are three alternative major story branches) – but due to the way they handle the dilemma of the gap between what the player knows and what the character the player plays knows.
The story branches in Fate/Stay Night are meant to be played in linear order, successively. This limits the player’s ability to influence the storyline to a degree, especially since the first storyline only has one possible ending (and tons of “bad endings” that you can run into). Since the first play through takes about 15-20 hours, completing the second unlocked storyline seemed like a massive chore to me. The story had reached a conclusive, albeit bitter-sweet, ending on the first play trough and many loose ends were wrapped conclusively. On the other hand, even if the main characters of the storyline were dealt thoroughly, some of the other characters and their fates were left as mysteries.
So motivated to at least discover those few blanks, I took another try at the second branch of the story. I was a bit worried on my motivation level, since a good 5 hours of the first play trough were spent on building up the foundation of the story and dealing with the doubts of the player character. To my surprise the second play trough took quite radical turn.
Firstly, many of the minor characters that were eliminated from the story early on actually took more prominent role in the second play trough. The events familiar from the first play trough still occurred early on, but ended in different outcome. And to make things even weirder, the main villain of the first play trough was eliminated like an afterthought.
Secondly, the player character himself changed. On the first play through the character was more insecure and undetermined. On the second play trough he has more confidence and more inherit knowledge, as to reflect the fact that the player too knows more about the storyline.
In my opinion Fate/Stay Night succeeds in creating a superb replayability value through those design choices. The successive play troughs of the same core storyline take notice of the fact that the player has prior knowledge and actually use it to mislead the player on successive play troughs. The player has certain expectations towards the upcoming events, but the outcome can be radically different on the second play trough. And the designers of the storyline have taken to account the fact the player will have already developed certain level of attachment towards the main characters from the first play trough and take advantage of this fact (the successive play troughs involve more cruelty directed towards the main heroines, as example).
Sengoku Rance takes another approach to branching storyline. Since the branches are essentially smaller sub-stories, the player has greater freedom. Like in Fate/Stay Night, the replayability comes from the fact that certain characters will be eliminated in the course of the game and that there is limited amount of time so you won’t be able to “clear” all the characters.
Rance’s approach limits the amount that the individual sub-plots can be integrated in the central storyline (though some overlapping exists) but the sheer multitude of choices makes up for this. On other hand Fate/Stay Night manages to create coherent story from the three different branches, while keeping the redundancy to minimum. Sengoku Rance’s approach gives the player greater choice, while Fate/Stay Night creates stronger overall story (since all the elements support each other).
A common approach with multiple storylines that I’ve seen is the concept of unlocking “true endings”. Probably the most notorious example of this is dating game Clannad After Story. There is quite a major dramatic turn of events in the game. By completing all the side-stories in the storyline, the player can unlock a “true ending” where this major event is rewritten on a more positive note. While the true ending provides much more satisfying way to end the game, it also diminishes the game experience. The alternative reality where the most of the game was set in loses its value.
The PS2 version of Fate/Stay Night also has additional “final ending” that can be unlocked by completing all the five different endings of the game. What Fate/Stay Night does different, is the fact that it doesn’t rewrite the events of the other storylines. The bittersweet, “no happily ever after” ending of the first play trough remains, but the player is instead shown a glimpse on what might come after. The game doesn’t take the easy way out by removing the drama of the ending, but rather expands the story to show what might lie at the end of the life of the player character.
So in conclusion, what would I like to take from the different ways that parallel/branching storylines have been handled in the examples I gave?
- The central storyline approach of Fate/Stay Night
- Multiple perspectives to the central storyline as main branches of the story
- The extent of player choice of Rance (i.e. making the storylines playable in any order)
- The practice of making sure that accumulating player knowledge does not disrupt the way that he/she sees certain characters on successive play troughs (no common main antagonist that is revealed at the end of the story)
- Handling overlapping events in the storylines in a way that still surprises the player and takes to account his accumulating knowledge from previous play troughs
- Providing some incentive to finish the alternative branches of the story, whilst not rewriting the previous events to achieve a happy ending.
So what about you guys, how do you see branching/parallel storylines. Do you have examples of other games that handle the gap of what is known to player and what is known to player character well?
P.S. Rance’s storyline is quite epic by now: http://www.mediafire.com/?ud4m2u2ytih
