Making a romance involving the main character work

[Randommerade]

This is kind of two topics in one. The first one relates to my game and the second is a general question.

My game is going to be the kind of game where you make your character "you." Your choices influence her personality, etc. Therefore, I decided to make her silent except for when choosing what to say through a choice selection. She has no dialogue otherwise and will have no voice if I choose to implement voice acting in my game. This is to give the impression that the main character is truly an alternate version of the player, and the player has some sort of a connection to the character.

However, a big point in my game is relationships, specifically, friendship and romance (but a huge thing is romance). I'm having a hard time planning it out. Many relationship paths that I've written out seem one-sided. Is there a way that I can show the character develop their feelings and such without breaking the silence idea? I was thinking subtle touches like when the main character goes to bed, they have a dream about x character, and stuff like that, so perhaps the player will grow on this x character. Sorry if I'm rambling about my game a little bit, but I'm really stuck on the romance thing x_x I don't want to make the character talk to leave personality options open, but I don't want the romance to feel pointless and one-sided as well (kind of like Harvest Moon, relationships were cute sure, but not really meaningful).

The general question is, how do you make player/(N)PC relationships work realistically (not forced/cheesy) in general, whether the main character talks or not? Do you show signs that feelings are being developed? What do you do?

 

[Tokumei No]

In order to show the main character's emerging feelings, I would use music: for example, if the main character starts feelings something for a certain NPC, when he sees him a short particular music is played, so that the player knows that the atmosphere changed. 

You could also use some kind of image filters or scripts that do it. When a conversation between the main character and the NPC he likes starts, everything around them becomes unfocused and the lights become more brilliant.

You could also use some heartbeat sounds: as the NPC loved approaches, the heartbeat sound is played faster, simulating the emotion

 

[♥SOURCE♥]

Why not make the players express their interest in whoever they like? You could have some dynamic ways of doing that, for example; buying some sort of item that the character in question likes (and the player knows the character will like it) and giving it as a gift for the romance interest; conversations that can give hints about possible side quest that the player would have to figure out if they want to improve the relationship with that specific character, like a character saying something like "Oh, I always wanted to go to X place, and we're not that far away from there..." and the player can CHOOSE to go to that place, then when the party gets there, a special event is activated to advance the "romance" story.

If you want your players to feel like they are the main character, then let THEM decide who they grow fond of.

 

[Tokumei No]

Why not make the players express their interest in whoever they like? You could have some dynamic ways of doing that, for example; buying some sort of item that the character in question likes (and the player knows the character will like it) and giving it as a gift for the romance interest; conversations that can give hints about possible side quest that the player would have to figure out if they want to improve the relationship with that specific character, like a character saying something like "Oh, I always wanted to go to X place, and we're not that far away from there..." and the player can CHOOSE to go to that place, then when the party gets there, a special event is activated to advance the "romance" story.

If you want your players to feel like they are the main character, then let THEM decide who they grow fond of.

I agree: the player will need more choices as possible, but I think that you were already working on it.

 

[Randommerade]

I LOVE the heartbeat idea I think I'll implement that! Thanks!

As for my game, I don't want the relationships to be pointless and meaningless (Here's a ton of gifts, now love me!). I'm not saying those kinds of games aren't fun, but I want mine to have a meaning and a challenge. Here's what I was planning, actually.

The main character gets a random crush on another character (this is determined by how much they talk, how their personalities are in sync, how long they've been friends etc). The player will not be able to choose their crush, because much like in real life, crushes can't be controlled very much. Other characters will also be able to have crushes on the main character. HOWEVER, if the player doesn't like their chosen crush, they can still opt for someone else. I'm not going to make it so that the player has to reset the game each time they want to date whoever they want.

I've already got the system and some of the mechanics figured out, but writing the actual romance paths are proving to be a little hard because the MC is silent. ._.

 

[Kaiju Master]

you could always set it up like Harvest moon.  Giving gifts that suit the characters, asking them to go to a dance or party, talking to them regularly.

 

[Randommerade]

I just realized that my post may not have sounded like what I meant. I meant I wanted to show the feelings actually developing between the characters, even if the player didn't pick their crush. Not just romance candidate being all like "I LOVE YOU SO MUCH INSERT MEANINGFUL DIALOGUE HERE" and main character going "..." all the time.

And Kaiju Master, I love Harvest Moon but I feel like the romance part of it is shallow lol. (Like I said above: "here's tons of gifts, now marry me!")

 

[whitesphere]

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of the "here's a lot of gifts so you'll fall in love with me" game style.  I think it's the King of Unfortunate Implications if you stop to think about it for a minute.  Love = money.

I like the Side Quests idea.  But I like the idea better that, with all of the NPCs, you choose to do certain things --- and the NPCs, well, "choose" if they have a crush/whatever on you.   Maybe one of them loves cats, so if you do cat oriented quests, that NPC might develop a crush on you --- even if the quests were not assigned by that person.

So you'd start out being friends with these people.  It plays out like a typical, albeit more open-ended RPG.  Slowly as you choose to do various tasks --- an NPC or two develops a crush on you.  But you need to find out WHO feels that way, without alienating your other friends.

To win the game, you wouldn't just be fostering a blossoming romance, you would ALSO need to keep your friends close --- it shouldn't be "toss your friends to get romance" either.

But all of this is a lot harder than it sounds, I'm sure.

 

[Kaiju Master]

well the ps1 and ps2 editions get more complicated.  The original harvest moon is easier to get somebody to marry you but with the ps1 game you really have to work for about a year in game and have the biggest home in order to get a girl to marry you.  The gifts in game matter, you can only do it once a day, so no stacking of gifts to get her to marry you quicker.

maybe your game could have a bunch of events to choose from and going to certain ones could make different people like you more.

 

[Silent Darkness]

This wholly depends on whether your game has high levels of choice.

If you're not, then you need to make the context be there. Something deep and understandable, something that is more than skin deep, but is still made so that the player understands...

 

[Sharm]

Well, you've got a few things going on here that are going to work against each other. You've got a character with no personality who also doesn't talk and you still want to make this character have a believable romance. You don't actually have to have both of those, you could have someone who gains a personality through actions of the player or someone who's dialogue is really bland that people can put themselves into and still have it work. Both of those would make it a lot easier to write a romance for.


I think you're making things hard on yourself for no good reason with the "random crush" element though. The crush can seem random to the player without making it actually random, and unless you're intending to make a game where most people play multiple times that random element won't even be noticed by the player. If you drop the random bit, it becomes easier to write characters that romantically suit different character types and have a romance grow realistically. Yeah, you don't have any choice on who you crush on, but that has no real determination on who you actually end up with. People have crushes on people who would be horrible choice for a real relationship, and also fall in love all the time with people that they originally weren't attracted to at all.


I've talked about this before on this site, but Star Ocean 2 had an interesting system with relationships that I really want to see done more often. There were events that you could only trigger by going into town and talking with a character, and sometimes spending time with one character meant that you missed out on an event with someone else, because both events happened at the same time. I think this is the best way to get a romance to grow, a way that's allowing things to be dynamic but still can be scripted.


You may want to research some VN's. A lot of them do the shallow romance thing, but some don't, and they all have to tackle the problem of balancing content and choices while still managing to tell a satisfying story.

 

[Gui]

I agree completely with Sharm here: some of your narrative choices seem to exclude each other, like the mute character trying to court someone – how will he be able to show his interest if he doesn't speak? Unless both characters are deaf and mute, this will be extremely difficult to do in following this way, and what will this add to the experience of the player? Perhaps it is not the most interesting way to follow to begin with...

I think you need to know what you want: if the PC is mute, then having a "forced" romance may be the lesser evil; on the other hand, if the PC presents a "pre-build" personnality, giving to the player a possibility to choose his actions can be an added value to your game. Also, keep in mind that giving plenty of freedom to a player is not obligatory the best thing to do, especially if you want to focus on the story: once in a while, forcing the player in the direction of the plot is the best thing to do.

Let's take an absolute classic: in Romeo and Juliet, both characters fall in love at first sight and although it may seem cheesy, it still works, even centuries later. Actually, the two heroes falling in love is just a convenient way to accelerate the development of the plot; no need to lose time and/or the attention of the public with the turpitudes of the growing feelings – it may not be the most interesting aspect of a tale...

Perhaps you should ask yourself this question: do you want to build a love simulator or do you want to tell a story?