I’m currently working on a social sim/ dating sim, and i’m stuck between a very hard choice in my design.
I can’t decide if i want to randomly create every person in the game each new game, along with generic, but random dialogue, or if i want to create original characters, with individual non generic dialogue.
It’s going to be just as difficult to program either way, so that’s not a concern. I guess my biggest concern is replayability. I want something you can play more than once, and have a different experience, but i’m not sure which way would provide more meaningful replayability. Any and all thought on this, or even a relevant thread/article would be much appreciated.
Not going to lie, this is kind of a bullshit notion. If replayability is caused by something, like having a ton of depth to gameplay, then it’s not unreasonable, but outright having replayability as a central tenet of development without need is a case of putting the cart before the horse. Seriously consider why you should care, because if you can’t figure out an integral reason for it, then you’re just dragging down whatever you have.
One of my favorite thing about social games, sandbox games, and even dating sims, is that i can play them more than once, and have a completely different experience. To me, replayability is the key to when I purchase games. I like in depth rpgs that have different play styles, giving a rewarding experience each time you play.
And since to me, replayability is a key selling point for a game, I want to design a game with replayability in mind. I’m not saying it’s a good idea, but I really don’t care. I’m trying to learn by experimentation, and this experiment requires replayability.
Now don’t get me wrong, I do appreciate your feedback, but I tend to feel defensive when instead of responding in a friendly and persuasive manner of pointing out my flaws, you trash one point of my description, without even commenting on the rest of the idea as whole, or voting on which option you feel would work in the context of the experiment.
Bare in mind that in the OP the only kicker to your sandbox/story driven conundrum is that you want it to be replayable. It’s all surface level, and they aren’t even mutually exclusive since none of it says anything inherently about the core design. There’s nothing specific, and a person could go in a million different directions.
The thing about replayability is that it’s easy to grab a couple games off a shelf, recognize the hundreds of hours put into them, and equate their replayability as what made them special. This is opposed to thinking that they were special, so of course you replayed them. See the distinction? One rewards quality, while the other rewards psychological manipulation. Just wait til you start buying expensive alcohol, because chances are your values will change greatly.
Don’t let others talk you out of making the game you want to play. It is the best way to stay motivated and I suspect, there are others out there who want to play the same type of game. If I listened to people tell me that we would fail because of X, Y, and Z, I would end up making a game that is just like every other game.
The beauty of being indie is that we don’t have to do that. Now, other than the Sims, I haven’t played a dating game, but yours sounds fun.
One problem with generic and procedural dialogue is that it ends up being pretty much the same over and over again. I remember hearing that criticism about Witcher 3’s NPCs. Doesn’t mean you can’t do it, but it might be a lot of work, especially if you want to go with voice acting…very bad idea for procedural, imho.
BTW, getting defensive is natural, but it might be good not to show it. People really do try to give good advice, some are just a bit more grumudgeny than others at giving it. That is my new word…lol. Creating art, and I consider game design art, means having to accept feedback and remember the feedback might be coming from people who do not want to play your type of game. You have to filter out some of that and look for people that would enjoy your game.
We are putting some “dating” like features into our game, although it is a tiny part of the equation so not really something we are focusing on. Depending on your audience though, it can be fun. I remember playing some medieval strategy game where you had to build your dynasty by getting married and having kids, etc. I loved that game although it was full of bugs. The Guild, my son just reminded me of the name.
I think that if something’s mechanically robust, then simple replayability without much context works fine. Consider rogue-likes such as Don’t Starve. Or combat focused games like character action games–that’s a situation where you rarely have much “reason” for what you’re doing, but the strength of the mechanics make it worthwhile (consider DMC Bloody Palace).
So I think you have to ask: are my game mechanics themselves, divorced from all other context, interesting enough to stand on their own? If they are, you can probably get away with the more procedural type of replayability. If not, you may want to reconsider the mechanics, or go with a story focus.
I personally do not feel the mechanics need to be able to stand on their own if the context is powerful enough–I could probably only play 2%-3% of the games I own if they were divorced from their context or narrative framework. But if it’s possible to make them better without compromise in some area, then obviously that’s probably the thing to do.
For something like a dating sim–something more mental than physical–I personally feel a stronger story focus would be more interesting. But then I never cared for sudoku.
