@starkatt I don't play that kind of game much, but I'd love to see it with a setup that gave you some kind of "don't be creepy" meter that pegged when you were doing something icky.

You know. So the people playing it get to the subconscious awareness that they shouldn't do stuff like that.

@starkatt @Soreth The audience who could most benefit from such a game would of course refuse on the grounds that folks are getting politics in their dating Sims. Notch would fund an explicit creeper-plus alternative as an exercise in free speech. The media treat the whole thing as an argument between two equal positions. Meanwhile the circular firing squad decries the perceived stereotypes and proclaims it insufficiently doctrinaire.

In the silent corners, new OTPs bloom.

@literorrery @starkatt Welp, so much for the nice things.

@starkatt @Soreth It's still an awesome idea. I'm just aware of likely how it will go. Those OTPs in the silent corners are where I got my start in life.

@Soreth @starkatt Also, apologies. I didn't mean for it to be such a downer. I wanted to end on a pretty note, but that doesn't excuse dragging it through the yuck on the way there.

@starkatt this is narratively fascinating. I'm reminded of Mass Effect. I agree that the "pick your ME lover" plot-lines are poorly handled, but getting rejected isn't "fun".

This logic applied to other systems generates stress. What if you do everything right, but the galaxy sometimes still gets eaten by reapers at the end, and it's baked into the save? Failure is a miserable (if realistic) experience.

No solutions, only more questions. 🤔

@Longwing There's usually more than one romance option, so getting rejected by one person isn't the same as getting defeated in the main plotline.

@Longwing I can super understand power fantasy but uncritically applying it to relationships still feels kinda not-great to do universally.

@starkatt I agree. I don't think the games=entertainment automatically excuses this. It's far more complex.

This also intersects with the weird interplay of gaming and difficulty. No one is allowed to mock Dark Souls for being hard, but Gone Home is raked over the coals for not being hard enough. Are setbacks always bad? When are they appropriate? When are you adding useless frustration?

I love FTL, but hate it's arbitrary roguelike gameplay... yet that randomness brings me back.

@starkatt dial-a-lover isn't the solution (Tangentially, if you're going to let the player "romance" a list of people, why even give that list gender preferences? Shouldn't they all be basically Bi until a player shows interest?).

I'm not saying the current "standard" for these plots is good, just that I don't know how to replace them with something better.

@starkatt @Longwing what i'd probably do is have choices, but make the player be committed to a choice by time-gating the development of that subplot to the development of the main story - and also having it not be obvious from the outset how the object of your affection will react

that way your developing relationship with your amour sort of braids itself with the story of the game and provides another way for the ending to vary, if that makes sense

@typhlosion @starkatt tying these things more closely to the main plot is definitely part of it.

We're seeing the confluence of a bunch of conventions in RPGs which get weird when applied to romance.

Timed quests = bad
Optional subquests = good
Player should be able to "win" a subquest = good

@typhlosion

Thus you wind up with these oddly modular "pick who your romance will be with" plot lines that don't slot into the main story. They're divested from the rest of the plot, and as @starkatt put it, it's like you're shopping for a car.

A larger stable of variably interested NPCs might be the solution after all. This play-though, john's straight and Susan's just not that in to you, but you have this really sweet moment with Chris in act 2...