The football structure almost would seem to preclude replays - if the ending is a combined one, why would a player replay another route? It depends on if the routes through the story are interestingly different or provide a unique challenge or perspective.
Or it can be planned. There’s a mini-sub genre of “ironic replay” games such as Undertale or NieR: Automata which use a replay to turn the story on its head.
Apparently multiple routes and Easter eggs can be catnip to some players. They made it real hard to get all the endings in Silent Hill 2 and that is not a fun game to replay at all. Although that was before so much internet information was available originally.
I’m a big replayer/completionist and would definitely be motivated to replay a football-structure game if I enjoyed my first time through—if I liked a game and found the story interesting, the characters compelling, etc., then I’ll always be happy to see more of it! Experiencing other facets of the story, seeing the impacts of different choices (even if they don’t ultimately change the ending) always appeals to me.
I never used to to replay but now that I occasionally review games, I’ll replay shorter ones because reviewing something with multiple paths after only 15 minutes of play seems unfair to the author. But I also dislike replay and almost never do it just because I want to. In theory it seems great, but I rarely like doing it.
This might be worthy of a separate thread, but I’ll ask here: Could you share the remainder of your 5-criteria scoring method? I’m always interested in other’s rubrics.
Sure! (I’m away from my laptop so my phone may cause typos).
-Polish. This means being bug free and not using standard responses for parser games (u less intentionally using standard responses for some reason), and for twine games it means having a ui that fits (sometimes plain Harlowe works) and not having typos or bugs.
-Descriptiveness: can I picture what’s going on in my head? It doesn’t have to mean being verbose. Wizard Sniffer has tiny room descriptions. But it does mean not being repetitive or generic or dull. Using all the sense is nice but I don’t consider that explicitly, just using it as an example.
-Interactivity: for parser games, do I have to wrestle with the parser? Are the puzzles frustrating or tedious like towers of Hanoi? Does the game recognize what I’m typing in once I know the solution? For choice games, do the stats make sense? Do I feel like I have agency or that my clicks bring meaning to the game? Can I tell the difference between clicks that go forward or ones that give “asides”? All of these rules can be broken but basically this is kind of “is it fun as a game”.
-Emotional impact. Do I feel anything playing this game? A thrill or sadness or intrigue? Or does it just never draw me in? Very subjective.
-Would I play again? Games I really like a lot I often end up replaying years later. Some games have replay that make them something I want to revisit in the short term.
The shortest game that satisfies all of these for me is something like Creak, Creak. The longest would include things like Curses.
This reminds me of that SeedComp seed where the choices switch between different perspectives on a single event. I should see which entries used that one.
Yeah, I feel the same way. It’s a tricky tightrope to walk! If multiple replays diminish the game to a notable degree for me, I’ll factor this into the review. But I also know that lots of people like “collect the endings” lists. Sometimes they work for me too! A Trial by B Minus Seven has this mechanic, and it doesn’t bother me there. But I’ll usually return to that game once every year or so. I don’t replay it over and over exhaustively in a single sitting.
Speaking of replays, I just replayed Taghairm for the first time in… eight or nine years? It’s better than I remember. I thought The Bloody Wallpaper might’ve surpassed it as the best thing I’ve written, but Taghairm is probably still at the top of my personal list.
Basically a replay value, a thing that any game designer should be familiar with. It makes people try new stuff to get all hidden tidbits they haven’t got to on the first playtrough. I think it would serve all IF writers (especially for parser IFs which have more in common with regular games) to be familiar with game design concepts as it greatly enhances it.
While my first game won’t have multiple endings (because I am still learning Inform7), I do plan on eventually making one that has different endings based on multitude of player choices.
One of the addons for Skyrim that I tried, randomises the start of the game. Instead of always turning up on the cart, and picking your race, it chose a random race and put you in one of a dozen or so locations with one of a dozen or so back stories (so there were hundreds of combinations) and gear.
The game felt quite different if you started as a Khajiit tinker, selling used pots in Markarth instead of the normal game opening. Certainly it encouraged even less interaction with the plot
I guess I missed this when it first was posted (or perhaps forgot to reply). A TADS entry to the 2021 IF Comp, Ghosts Within, has multiple randomized starting points. If I recall correctly, a decision you make at each starting point affects the play of the rest of the game. It’s a sprawling work, so this tree of starting paths is not insignificant.
It had no changes at all, the mod just randomised starting race, location, equipment and backstory. Skyrim, as a game, doesn’t care at all about your character’s history.
But at least the default opening offers an early Empire/Nord faction choice, and puts you near Whiterun, so you are likely to interact with the main plot to some extent. Many players never do — that’s a truism of Skyrim — and the alternate starts made that even easier.
