That’s really cool and I love this! It is also illustrative of the problem in general with a video play through of a text game in that there’s little to put on video unless you can animate.
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Not parser-based, but I think choice-based games are potentially very streamable, because it’s easy to get chat involved in decisions. Asking viewers to vote on narratively important choices somehow feels less “backseat gaming”-y than the way it would feel to have them shouting out puzzle solutions or similar.
I made a choice-based, fairly-systems-driven-with-intermittent-narrative, Oregon Trail-style game for Ludum Dare once, and got one pair of streamers who seemed to really have fun with it. They had previously done a long Oregon Trail campaign, and had developed a bunch of in-jokes and names for the party members (complete with imagined personalities) that transferred over well. Obviously it’s lucky that I found those particular guys, but from what I gathered it sounded like they & their chat found Oregon Trail to be very streamable, specifically for its more narrative elements.
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Not sure if it fits here, but I’ve created a 24/7 twitch channel recently where people can play some IF games in the chat. If no one plays (like, 99% of the time) it auto-plays some of the games, but you can join in or select a different game anytime.
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Hmm, I watch Twitch streamers when I’m waking up and some of my best friends are streamers (yes, I know how that sounds), so I can at least offer some observations on what makes a good streaming game.
For starters, games with long and continuous scenarios are discouraged. While you can certainly play on nostalgic value (people will watch an old Final Fantasy game stream), it’s difficult to retain audiences. People like to pop in and out, not sit down and watch. Besides, there are people who will go “oh man, I can’t wait for your reaction to Scene XYZ.” That is kinda an unsolicited spoiler: the streamer knows something will happen, there’s misplaced expectations, the dynamic is all wrong.
What tends to do well on streams is games that require very little context for audiences. A Northernlion could play some deckbuilder roguelike or roll a rock up a cliff, and audiences will not feel cheated from missing stuff. It’s also where people can make funny or memorable clips because streamers can go into fun tangents or discuss stuff with the chat.
That said, there have been visual novels and adventure games that do well on streams. Slay the Princess and Needy Girl Overdose are good examples: the short loops and amount of content per iteration mean there’s lots of interesting things going on.
But playing these games can be exhausting. The streamer needs to read aloud all the game text or just skim ahead, hoping the audience can follow their pace. And this isn’t including the obligatory interactions with the chat.
So if you want to make an IF game that is perfectly attuned to streams and videos, it will be a kind of adventure game that is mostly voiced and full of interesting content per loop. I imagine a game like Stay? if voiced would be a great streaming game. The game doesn’t make you do much repetitive content, so it doesn’t make the streamer look bad or have nothing to say. And the romance is kinda cute.
I also suspect subject matter is important too. Can’t do Zorkian fantasies forever. You gotta do romance, mystery, horror, or some combination.
I don’t necessarily believe graphics are important. The most important thing is for the game to reduce the burden on the stream (the game is supposed to be a kind of context or grounding for small talk). Pretty graphics are nice, but a good streamer will be able to talk all day long. The game just needs to be interesting enough for the streamer to keep playing and for audiences to have as background noise or otherwise, what’s the point of streaming a game when they can just do a Just Chatting session?
(Of course, this is ignoring the cottage industry of video essays, which have their own dynamic. I can write about that if people are interested in hearing more.)
Anyway, this is not exactly the “best game” to make. I’d rather see developers just make their own game they want to see. But I think if I am to take the thread title seriously, this is probably how I’d approach it if I were making a game for the streaming crowd.
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