What do you think about forked games?

[Alanood]

My game will require more than one playthrough to understand the story 100%.
Do you think it will be a major put-off for players?

I would like to hear your opinions.

 

[Uzuki]

Depends on how long it is. A lot of people don't really have the time to deal with multiple path stories or it isn't explained well enough in game to know that you have to play the game again. A good example is are Yoko Taro games like the Drakengard and Nier games. They require you to replay parts of the game with multiple conditions to fully get the story, but a lot of people have not personally seen those parts of the games because they quit after beating it the first time or don't want to fulfill the requirements to get the different story bits.

I would advise that if you go down this route that you make the game very short, immediately let the player know that there is more story after beating the game and either make the requirements for unlocking the new bits easy or don't add them at all.

 

[Sauteed_Onion]

To give a little counter meowing..

It depends on what kind of 'fork' you're going for.
If it's something you do in the middle of the game, and you make a big decision, let the player save right before and let them choose their way I suppose.. or if you got a whole lot of branching narrative, that determines outcomes sprinkled all through your game maybe consider @Uzuki 's suggestions. If you are having the fork be choosing a character at the beginning, and once you beat you get to play through as the character(s) you didn't choose and they get a different scenario playing out at the same time as the first play through was going on, maybe try eating some ice cream and sending me some!
Seriously though, if you do the different characters at the beginning of a game, and then beat it with one then replay as another at the same time the other is playing, like maybe they went different routes or something, I like that. I've seen it done in ps1 games I won't name.. (with zombies.. I don't like those games anymore.. Somehow the modern incarnations remain ultra popular even though the hold no candle to the earlier ones in the series.)

 

[TheoAllen]

Personally I always go with the flow I feel it's natural, then if I don't have plan for another playthrough, I just read the wiki for spoilers

 

[JtheDuelist]

I personally am wanting to make one where ALL of the decisions you make, even on the smallest of things like "do you help the old lady cross the road?" or "red shirt or blue shirt?", determine the outcome, but don't tell the players that they could possibly get different endings, at least wait until after the end credits to tell them there were other outcomes.

 

[Andar]

it depends on how it is done.
if the different playthroughs are 90% identical and only a few quests different, then most people will consider it a waste of time - why should they solve 90% of the quests twice to get to the few different parts?

but if your different forks are really different, then the problem is that the developer has to put in extra work that not every player will see (because not everyone will play it multiple times).

 

[Tai_MT]

My game will require more than one playthrough to understand the story 100%.
Do you think it will be a major put-off for players?

I would like to hear your opinions.

Depends on a vast number of variables.

1. How long is your game? Too long, and I won't want to play it a second time just to see what's different and what more I can learn.
2. How fun is your game? If it's boring, I'll play it once... sometimes not even once, and be done.
3. How interesting is the story? If I don't find it interesting I'm not going to care about seeing it to completion once, much less a second time.
4. How convoluted is the story that I need to play a game twice to see it all? Ideally, you'd want the second playthrough to not answer any questions, but instead elaborate and explain the stuff the player already knows. First playthrough should answer all your questions.
5. How quickly can I get to making the new choices or having the new game to explain the stuff? If I have to wade through another hour of the game just to start getting new information, then I don't care.
6. Are the characters engaging a second time through the game? Most of the time, characters are good for a single play through of a game. Or a book you read. Or a movie you watch. They're rarely good the second time around, unless they've got all new dialogue and scenes the second time around.
7. Is there any reason to play the game a second time for the answers beyond "I'm curious"? If all I am is curious, I might just wait until someone finishes it, posts the ending and all the information, and read their stuff instead of having to slog through it myself.


Personally, I'd concentrate on making a game people want to play through once and enjoy the heck out of.

 

[AsuranFish]

How many times does the story branch off?

Maybe you could do sort of a New Game+ where you begin from pivotal points in the story?

 

[newfarap]

i think theyre damn dandy!

 

[Milennin]

I did multiple endings for my first game, that would require multiple playthroughs if you wanted to learn everything about the characters and see different story events play out. For the regular player who plays through it once, they won't know about this because the fork happens through player action (act of exploration), rather than picking from an option in a textbox, so it gives the full experience based on the path the player takes.

For a game that hides important story elements behind branching paths, I honestly wouldn't care that much because story, to me, is one of the least important aspects when playing a game. But I sure wouldn't be the type of player to restart the game to see what they other paths are like, unless your game happens to be super-duper amazing.
Even if I put story pretty low on my list, I would still feel less satisfied finishing the game and not having all the answers to what happened in the story than if I had gotten everything in a single playthrough. I'd say the only way to give me an incentive to replay the game for the full story (apart from it being super-duper amazing) is if your game isn't annoyingly long to go through and has aspects to it that boost replayability (such as having random events, or lots of smaller choices to make).

 

[Aesica]

I think that, in the age of RPGMaker market saturation, most people aren't going to replay your game more than once unless they really, really like it. That said, I think it depends on how you handle your branching. If you do something like SaGa Frontier, where the player selects a main character right at the start and experiences their story in a more bite-sized manner, that could definitely work. However, if your game is longer and the branches are peppered throughout the game as "kill the thief/spare him" choices, then yeah I'm probably going to do what someone else said and look for spoilers to save myself the time. Yes, even if I really liked your game.

 

[Wavelength]

It tends to be a positive feature unless a single playthrough will result in an unsatisfying feeling (because of either its ending or the amount of confusion the player is left with).

The best thing to do is make each playthrough feel complete and satisfying, but offer the player new questions and new answers in other playthroughs that they never even realized they were missing the first time around.