Two people meet, fall in love, walk off into the sunset, the end. It’s a standard path but not one we want to walk with this game. Like all my stories I like to show the beginning, middle, and end goals of a romance — you earn your happy ending, and your story doesn’t stop just because someone said “I love you.” You need to get through the obstacles in your way… even when those obstacles are each other.
In short: Today, I’m writing an argument between lovers. Specifically Lover #1 being your chosen romance, and Lover #2 being the player character.
This is harder than it sounds, and it already sounds pretty tough. In a linear story where you have full control over the characters you can set up any situation you want where two people get in conflict with each other. But… how do you do it in a roleplaying-driven narrative game where you have freedom of choice? How do you make the player either CHOOSE to have a conflict, or give them a conflict they can’t simply choose to avoid?
It’s a bit of a puzzle, and one I’m tangling with this week. I can’t reveal TOO much without spoilers, but let me give one example of one I’m cooking up, based on what you already know about these characters.
Naomi loves Pengo. Loves it, loves it, her favorite game of all time. She wants to decorate her Pengo cabinet with a statue or something on top to call attention to it, but there’s no Pengo topper out there… so she takes a Pengy, a popular japanese mascot character, and doctors it to look like Pengo. Except the company that owns Pengy is /fantastically/ litigious when it comes to protecting their brand, and has been known to even sue day care centers that paint fake Pengys on their walls and such. She’s going to get the arcade into hot water if she leaves the art up.
So how do we offer the player freedom of choice? My thinking is we have three options. Let her down gently, let her down honestly, or let her have her way. In the first two cases she doesn’t take it very well and an argument breaks out. In the last, she feels happy she got her way, but… Gavin is angry at you for ignoring his advice. And Naomi is wondering if you’re just pandering and caving in to avoid an argument, or if you genuinely feel that way. And thus, an argument breaks out anyway.
It’s not perfect — it’s an illusion of choice rather than a true choice. And I may be juggling this around, this is only my first take at what this encounter could look like. I welcome your input. Can you think of any other narrative games that do arguments well, where you feel you have control but that you can’t simply solve it by saying the right thing? I’m curious. Let me know what you think!
In real life, arguments in general aren’t unavoidable. They become unavoidable when you have something you care about, and other people exist who don’t see it your way. So, my suggestion is to allow various no-argument paths, but make most of them unpleasant (if you always give in, you probably won’t like the outcome, even if it is conflict-free). Perhaps just one of the possible lovers could offer a pleasant conflict-free path, though…
In the Pengy example, “let her have her way” doesn’t need to result in an argument. If you back down immediately, you get to watch your lover suffer… well, at least she isn’t blaming you for anything. (Or, maybe someone else confronts her, and you get another chance to join on her side… why should we back down from the company that owns Pengy, anyway? I want an argument with them!)
It’s the gamification of it which comes to cross purposes with that. In a game, most players aim for harmony between characters — especially a romance game where you’re gamifying “what’s the best response to make this person like me.” You’d never willingly take the other options where there’s conflict when you have a conflict-free out. Consequence is only consequence when it gets in the way of what the player wants; you can say “Oh, the arcade lost money and was sued” but that doesn’t matter if they stay the course with Naomi. They feel invincible, and nothing short of a hard stop game over would change that.
That’s why I feel some forcing of the hand is needed. For narrative purposes, for dramatic purposes, there needs to be conflict. I can’t offer a way out of that or it’d feel like you’re “losing the game” by activating a conflict path. But if I structure it correctly, it can feel like there wasn’t really a ‘win’ here… and since you don’t really ‘lose’ either, it’s not like the game goes “YOU FAIL AT ROMANCE” and stops dead, it’s just a new wrinkle to enjoy.
As long as the player has goals, the player can face conflict to achieve those goals. In a dating game, the player isn’t just out to “do whatever this person wants”… they’re out to “get this person to a certain level of liking me within the time available”. Even if the person is generally in favor of a relationship with the player, they might do something that threatens that goal.
For example: perhaps a character is obsessed with a particular game to the point that they’re neglecting other responsibilities… and this also interferes with dates, not enough to make them just not look like an option, but enough that the missed opportunities seriously slow down the player’s progress. In that situation, walking into a conflict for the sake of improving that person’s time management can start to seem pretty attractive. (You can have this be necessary to get the best ending or not, depending on what you want online guides to recommend.)