Choice design

[Shadowofmyself]

Does every choice make a difference? I ask because there are places within the story where I don't always see or perhaps it's better to say I don't understand the differences between choices. Sometimes the answer is obvious as the next page is different from one choice to the other, but other times I don't see a difference. Example, scene n1bar14, the hot spot choice and the under picture choice while the slightly different, it's similar enough that I don't understand the differences. Another example, d1office002c, one of the hot spots and the under picture choice, the wording is different but not enough for me to see difference.

[Wolfschadowe]

Example, scene n1bar14, the hot spot choice and the under picture choice while the slightly different, it's similar enough that I don't understand the differences.

I'm not that evil. If there is no substantial difference between hotspot text and bottom text, there will be no substantial difference in the result. Everywhere in the game, if there's an image link and a bottom text link that are the same choice, just with slightly different wording, then there will be no difference in the result.

Another example, d1office002c, one of the hot spots and the under picture choice, the wording is different but not enough for me to see difference.

Yep, again the hot spot for "Tell her about the police lines" and the bottom text of "The cops had the streets..." are essentially the same thing, meaning that they will lead to the same result.

If there is a meaningful difference between the options, then there will potentially be a different result. Sometimes those results are building relationships or deciding branches. Other times they just give a different viewpoint or information to you that may help in a future play through on other paths. Take the strip club n1club005. Neither option will impact the game directly, but both options give you different information that help you understand the characters. Understanding the characters better will also help you understand the impact of the game choices later.

Just keep in mind, there are no intended "gotcha's" in the game. No tiny hidden hotspots to search for, and no trickery in things like choosing between two seemingly identical options. I think the women are complicated enough to understand without having to deal with game trickery on top of it.

Every branch and every reaction from the women, I can explain why it happens, from a character perspective. They have moods, desires, and impulses. Figuring those out for each of them is half the game. heh.

[dvnh]

I greatly admire the "no trick questions" aesthetic that you've adopted here, Wolf. (Or maybe that ought to be an ethic? Whatever: it's good.)

One problem that I'm already seeing, though (and which will doubtless crop up more and more as this project gets more and more complex), is that it can be very hard to know when a decision might open up a bit of additional content twelve or twenty (or fifty!) pages later. It's -- how to put this... it can be hard to find the unexplored parts of the decision-space. Does that make sense? The major branches are all pretty obvious, but there are nooks and crannies and dead ends -- and while most of these come up organically if I just play through a few times with a curious mind, I've never managed to see *all* of the content in a single update without taking a brute-force approach. Which inspires a similar level of frustration to a "find the pixel" puzzle.

I don't know if this is fixable. It might not even be desirable to fix it; part of the reason that the game feels rich is that the player keeps stumbling across things, which means you have to hide lots of things for us to stumble over. I guess what I want is for the choices that lead to unseen content to somehow be highlighted? I've seen this in other games, where they print them in a different font -- but I suspect that these have much simpler structures than BEW.

I will say that it can be especially frustrating when some choice early in the scene opens up a new hotspot later in the scene. So for instance in the campus scene, there's a point where Brad might or might not be able to stop Azumi from doing a certain thing. Having played that through once where I couldn't stop it, I assumed that this was a card with only one option (which wouldn't be unusual). When I got to that card on my next playthrough, not having done anything that *seemed* like it would really alter the situation, I thought "okay, there's no choice on this one, I just have to click through." Then I very randomly scrolled over the new hotspot and noticed the text flicker -- if I hadn't been lucky, I'd never have found it. (And what's worse, if I'd been brute-forcing the decision tree, I would have crossed that branch off as fully explored!) This feels like the kind of thing that you're trying to avoid.

Thanks as always for all your incredible work! Your game is awesome, and if this issue never gets fixed it'll still be awesome. (I feel like I'm complaining that my flying car doesn't have a cool enough license plate number.)

[JFR]

... Then I very randomly scrolled over the new hotspot and noticed the text flicker -- if I hadn't been lucky, I'd never have found it. ...

I'll let Wolfschadowe deal with game design choice questions.

One thing, though, that you may or may not have noticed is the red bounding box that sometimes appears around a screen. It isn't always there. When you see that red line around the screen, it means there is a hidden hot-spot, or more than one, in that screen. If no red box, then don't waste time looking for one, the only choices are in the action line at the bottom of the screen.

[Wolfschadowe]

I've never managed to see *all* of the content in a single update without taking a brute-force approach. Which inspires a similar level of frustration to a "find the pixel" puzzle.

I get what you are saying here, and what you are describing is either a flaw, or benefit of the core game design. Not sure which, but I'm running with it anyway.

The key design concept I'm talking about is that I planned for the concept of Player Knowledge, which may be familiar to former (and current) D&D wonks like me. After one full play-through of the game, the Player has knowledge that the game character does not, so I designed the game to reward the player for gaining the knowledge and guiding the character, Brad, to exploit that knowledge. An example with mild spoilers is:

spoiler: show

Think back to the progression of Player understanding of Emily's character:

1. If you think back to the first play-through focusing on Emily, we have the impression that Emily is a conservative, somewhat prudish woman. The intent would be to likely get a date for dinner and a movie with her within the first couple playthroughs, and have a relatively traditional date during Season 1, but there would be hints and info that more is there behind the curtain.
2. On another play-through, focusing on Natalie, the player returns to the office and hears about Emily meeting Faith and we get more clues that there's more behind the surface about Emily.
3. On yet another play-through, Brad may end up fooling around in the office and getting a hand-job from Emily. We learn that she hasn't done that fully, even to her ex, and combining that with knowledge gained from the dinner/move date and other to be named information, we understand more about Emily being somewhat repressed by her relationship.
4. Unlocking the Day 1 bonus scene, we understand more about Emily's personality, especially if we combine that information with what we learned on the dinner/movie date, and from our strip club branches. That information can help us understand more about how to interact with Emily.
5. Finally (More major spoiler here )
   spoiler: show

   We may discover that Emily is really a bit of a vulgar, repressed nympho, and not anywhere near as conservative as we first thought.

With that knowledge, finding the "Elite" paths, and for those with ultimate knowledge of the characters, the "corrupt" paths becomes much, mush easier and organic.

So the game was designed to help the player understand the women better to facilitate and reward multiple Playthroughs. But here's the problem...

The player doesn't have enough information yet.

That's right. Some of the information needed to solve the characterization puzzles is coming in future episodes and seasons. When I designed the game mechanic, I didn't realize the game would be quite so big, or take so long. In some ways, I "bit off more than I can chew."

This is especially true because players want to see all the new content as soon as the episode is released, even though much of it isn't intended to be found yet. I don't mean that the content is hidden or obscured. I mean that the knowledge needed to find it is in future episodes, and just isn't available yet. That leaves a brute force approach to find the content. This design choice might be the Achilles Heel of BEW.

TLDR: The design of the game is for replay-ability with advanced Player Knowledge of the characters to unlock all the paths, but much of that Player Knowledge is coming in future episodes, meaning one of the greatest features of the game, might also be its greatest weakness, leading many players to taking an unintended brute force method to find all the content.

[infiniteignorance]

Speaking only for myself, and as someone who has played far more of these types of games than a man of my age should, I enjoy the way the game plays. It's different from other games of its kind in that it's more deductive and less inductively predictable. It requires that you pay attention. The devil is in the details.

[boulimanus]

Agree with all the above and I think the example of Emily described by Wolfe, shows the variety of women the game contains.
Another thing that makes this game special and very enjoyable.

[Wolfschadowe]

shows the variety of women the game contains.

I don't really intend to get off on a philosophical rant here, but if we really think about it, we all have multiple personalities.

What I mean is, the person we project when we are at work (our work self) is likely different than the person we are when we are out in public with strangers, which is also a bit different than the person we are when we are with our friends, which is different than what might be called our "true self" that only a very select few, highly trusted people ever see. I'll bet a lot of us put on figurative masks, sometimes behaving like we think we should (our work self, for instance)

I tried to capture a bit of that in the game. This next statement isn't 100% accurate, but the general concept is close enough. The Easy and Standard paths through the game are often reflective how the women behave based on how they think they should. Similar to wearing the "work mask" or the "normal mask." You know, behaving how the particular character feels a normal person should behave. The Elite paths move closer to the "True Self" aspect of the women's characters. The Corruption paths are more about the women's "deep-dark" that they may even hide from themselves. Just keep in mind, the "deep-dark" refers to where the traits and desires are hidden, and not the nature of the trait. They could be positive or negative.

I think that putting those levels of behavior into the character helps build richer and more realistic feeling games, and makes part of the challenge actually trying to get to know the characters. (If I'm doing it correctly. )

[boulimanus]

I don't really intend to get off on a religious rant here either, but Amen.

(NB: I wouldn't call what you describe different personalities though. They are instead facets of a single one, but seen through different lenses as we apply various social filters. As for what is normal and what is deep and repressed, I'll leave it to one's point of view. What is sure, is that the onion layers certainly make us humans pretty interesting and fun to get to know)