He loves you

[Tigersong]

How's it going, all? I've got a question itching to be asked, so here goes.

It didn't take me too long to realize that calling my project "Harvest Moon-like" was a misnomer. I want to concentrate more on telling a story than making a farming game. With that said, here's the question.

Natalie's Tale is about a romance between the title character and her childhood friend. I'm wondering whether it makes more sense to make him the playable character, or her. If I go for the latter choice, I don't want players feeling that they just wait around for the next cutscene to start- how boring. Maybe I should have some farming mechanics after all... What to do?

 

[Hudell]

Why don't you let the player choose the character?


As someone who doesn't like visual novels, I think you should have a lot of stuff for the player to do between cutscenes. The more mechanics the better

 

[Seriel]

I like how Harvest Moon handles this.

You need some other mechanic (Like farmwork) to keep the player hooked in between scenes.

 

[Scythuz]

Do you know which character you'd be able to write a story for better?  You could always do some puzzles instead of farming mechanics if that's more your kind of thing?

 

[Tigersong]

Not sure, Sythuz. I'm a guy, but I try not to let that stop me from writing realistic female characters. Puzzles might be a good way of both making the game more fun and practicing my RPG-making skills...

 

[Valkyriet]

An idea to add to the farming feature : having specific achievements that the player can unlock based on their level (if you have levels) or by doing tasks and interacting with people. Some achievements could even unlock special NPCs who can help upgrade your crops or farm features.

I remember playing a game called Alice Greenfingers and it was based purely on farming. You started out with a watering can and could upgrade to sprinklers if you had enough money. The store had everything from seeds to fertilizers. Crop demand changed every season or so, thereby providing a little more flexibility with income. The longer you played (or the more NPCs you unlock) you get a new kind of crop. A funny side-quest involved making the pet dog exercise by following you around because he got too fat.

I got so rich by the end of it I bought 20 each of cows, sheep and chickens, and had only 4 crop slots. Hehe.

Additionally, not to sound cliche or anything, but maybe if the childhood friend is a nobleman (or person of high rank), then maybe the main character's gold accumulated towards the end could play a role in their romance.

Edit : In order to make it sound not-cliche, I'd say that financial stability always matters in marriage (if you plan on having a marriage ending, that is).

 

[Musashi]

Don't create mechanics just for the player to 'do something until the next cutscene start' - this is bad game design.

So, your story is about a romance between two friends, but what is your game about? Making the right choices? Trying to make your friend fall in love with you? Live a good life as a farmer? Kill monsters? Jump on platforms? In my opinion, if you want to tell a story in cut scenes with almost no interaction with the player, just make your game one of those 'more-film-than-game-games' instead of throwing some useless/uninspired gameplay just so it fells more like a game. Or write a book =D

 

[Kes]

The General Discussion thread is about things which affect many games,  whereas this is exclusively about one game.  I'll quote the first rule for this part of the forum

1) Discussion should be general, not project-specific.
While you're welcome to use your project as an example, please try to keep the conversation broad. Feedback that's only specific to your project should be posted in your project thread. If it's too early in planning to have a project thread, you can use the Plot and Character Feedback thread.

There are a couple of places I could move this to - plot and character feedback thread, or features feedback thread.  

@Tigersong

Where do you want this to go?

 

[Wavelength]

If there's a big difference in the amount of "game" you'd be able to offer between making one character the MC versus the other, choose the one that offers more gameplay.  You can always make the story focus on the other character.  To the Moon is a good example - the narrative and emotional focus was on River, and to some extent John, moreso than the playable MCs who travel through John's memories.  This worked really well - try to replicate it.  To the Moon is also a really good example of a game that, at times, threw in gameplay just for the sake of "having gameplay".  This didn't work so well - try not to replicate that part.