June 27 Update

I'm hijacking your patreon page, my wife has a story posted, read them and vote on the one you like. https://app.purplewallstories.com/ Well darn you have to log in to vote, well if you feel like it, it would be appreciated, otherwise just enjoy the stories.

Darthjake

I'd say we're getting close to the end game.

Darthjake

so i havent played tls in quite a while and i just remeber i need to get back into it but i have a question are we near the endgame of the series or are we no where near the end of the series itself

Irish

Mantyos is supposed to be fairly built, but I don't think of him as much taller than Olondris and don't believe I described him that way. I think it captures the spirit of the characters nicely, though. Anyway, thanks for the feedback!

Sierra Lee

Mantyos is a big fella, or maybe that's just the artist's interpretation. Olondris looks good too, but I don't know that I'd look at this and be fooled by the "she's my daughter" line. Overall nice fanart. I quite like the Frieda's Tale aesthetic, the new Frozen Tale maps look pretty good, and I'll just echo Lamsey on the Volcano Tale drafts.

Decanter

I agree about the volcanic tale maps. I didn't even think about the dark blobs the first time I saw it.

Runcible Technician

The Snow Queen's fortress and Frieda's Tale both look good to me. No obvious issues that I can see. The Volcanic Tale looks a bit uninspiring, as if it's just a slightly more detailed version of the original default assets. The tiling of the terrain is very noticeable on the horizontal/vertical straight edges, and on the lava-filled cracks. Those straight edges look pretty unnatural - it might look better if some of the thin ones could be converted to bridges between platforms (I'm thinking like a Bridge of Khazad-Dum sort of thing?). I only realised that the random shaded squares were supposed to be submerged platforms when I noticed the filename - lava is not translucent, so they definitely do not work. It'd be better to have rocky outcrops jutting out of the lava, perhaps in stalagmite formations. Adding some of those to the main terrain could also break up the monotony.

Lamsey

Yeah, I think that's a worthwhile angle for choice taxonomy. Even though few games will fall on an extreme end of the spectrum, there's a definite difference in terms of effect and objectives. I'd agree TLS is on the Simulationist end, and that's something I intend to keep exploring. Even given the world's size, even given the time it takes to update tons of NPCs, I think that sort of thing is one of the strongest impacts TLS has to offer. This upcoming update will include more elements on the Replayability end, though hopefully in a logical way. Sometime I'd like to try experimenting with a game that's in the center of the spectrum, though of course it would have to be one smaller in scope than TLS. Another idea I've toyed with is a time loop game where replayability would be an essential feature, which would also allow for Simulationist consequences that completely ruin the player's chances. I can't be sure about the actual management of time and resources for a larger studio, but I have definite ideas about how I'd try to use a Telltale-size budget. >You just have to watch footage of someone using the mod that shows the true answers on their 'dialogue wheel' to see that the 'choices' are yes, yes, yes, sarcastic yes. Haha, that sounds fun. I know some people like this sort of pure flavor choice as an exercise in roleplaying, but I've always hated it.

Sierra Lee

Every time I think about branching choices in a video game I think about a video on youtube by a content creator named MrBtongue called TUN: Choice and Consequence. He spoke about 2 types of choice and consequence in games presented by developers, Simulation and Replayability. Simulation has consequences for player choices that extend through the entire game in a believable way that make the game world seem organic (he uses the original Fallout as an example, namely the choice to send water to your vault at the beginning, making the game more difficult later on). The other type is creating branching choices for Replayability, where the decisions don't effect the world much, but have consequences severe enough that players will try playing the game a second time to see the result (he used mass effect 2 loyalty as a point there, notably the question of how 'loyalty' would effect whether or not someone takes a rocket to the face in a cutscene). For what it's worth, despite the difficulty of the branching paths in TLS, I feel you fall on the Simulation side of the equation. From worst play to optimized, every choice has had believable consequences, good and bad (I'm specifically thinking about conversations that happen with npcs during non-optimized play here, at the least). You are utterly right about the Telltale games though, hilariously Fallout 4 falls into the same box despite it's open world. You just have to watch footage of someone using the mod that shows the true answers on their 'dialogue wheel' to see that the 'choices' are yes, yes, yes, sarcastic yes.

Runcible Technician

It's tricky because a lot of that data would be controlled by individual companies, and they don't make that sort of thing public enough of the time. I have the strong impression that story-heavy games tend to be played only once, but I would be very interested if companies actually revealed internal data. Regarding languages, Valve actually gave a talk about this a number of years back, though I can't find the link. I believe they identified around five languages that produced a significant number of new players, listing statistics the entire way. Simplified Chinese is indeed a major one, though it's still probably not worth it for me given that my games have lots of text but limited popularity.

Sierra Lee

Good question. If you're lacking certain investments, there are a lot of branches to reflect your weaker state, but other than that, this section actually isn't that punishing to truly terrible saves. There should be some more of that in the big collateral damage section that will come after the chaos of 0.57.0.

Sierra Lee

I certainly try to give choices some impact, but I think the medium has a lot of space to grow. I intend to lean into this further at the end of TLS, since there won't be ripple effects down the road. Glad to hear you're both still enjoying it! I had fun with that twist section.

Sierra Lee

Yeah, funneling can easily be frustrating. I've tried to be careful about decisions so that their impacts don't feel negated by the story.

Sierra Lee

Good to hear!

Sierra Lee

Ah, Internet. Always keen to provide links to articles where people declare that all statistics point out at replayability having no commercial value (example: https://venturebeat.com/2021/03/02/josef-fares-interview-why-youre-going-to-love-it-takes-two/) but quite reserved when it's time to give links to the actual statistics. The "everyone knows it" on the subject seems indeed that any non-trivial branching, in games not explicitly designed to be replayed a lot of times (like a roguelike), is purely done "for the art", as game replayers are but a small niche. A niche likely to be overrepresented within your fanbase though, and doubly so within your patrons/other paying supporters, as well as one of the game's selling points, so I wouldn't be so sure it doesn't have some financial benefits attached to it in addition to the artistic ones... But I can think of no way to (dis)prove that theory. (admittedly, I have "virtualized" most of my own replays thanks to the Calculator; easier to change a few checkboxes at the top of a web page then look at the cascade of changes this caused within a single scroll than to replay a game for 40 hours) While we're on the subject of hearsay, I've heard the only language worth it for the translation of indie text-heavy games, outside English itself, is Simplified Chinese. Other languages apparently just don't have enough non-English reading natives for this to be viable. But once again, actual figures would be nice...

Rachnera

So, what are your plans for the absolutely worst saves in that regard?

Seil

OEA maps continue to look great to me personally. The outside of Frieda's house looks appropriately imposing! When I talk about TLS to other people, one of the things I always bring up is that your choices matter. Whether it is a bunch of little things adding up which is nice to see, or bigger things as well. I remember being so happy when I saw the elf slums were remodeled after okaying it earlier in the game. It is interesting to hear you say that you think you could do better because I can't ever think of a game I feel that does it better when I talk about it. For what it is worth, I'm certainly among those who will end up replaying and I'll look forward to your work in this section in particular. My wife has continued her playthrough and just met the Entity and after it took an actual form she said "Oh shiiiiiit!" which was a great reaction IMO. We're still working through this dungeon but I'm looking forward to her getting a fun new toy in the Tormented Shield and getting to interact more with the Entity. This reveal and the following events related to them is one of my favourite parts of the game.

Grim8P

Personally I much prefer your style of storytelling. Telltale games always end up pissing me off with the way they just funnel everything into the same ending. At least the old Bioware games gave you a good/evil branch.

Nathan Phoenix

I..... actually recognized Mantyos and Olondris just by the picture.

Darthjake

Thanks for the input on the translation. Usually, the translation process is too expensive to be worth it, for games like mine, but this is an unusual offer.

Sierra Lee

Thanks for the input on the translation. The translator is Brazilian and allegedly approached me due to recommendations from other Brazilians.

Sierra Lee

Yes I know what Desertopa is getting at with the magnitude of branching that if you went excessively far as I've seen in some VN's that it would collapse. Yet you do offer distinctive choices that do have an impact and I think you're doing a great job as is.

JJS

On the subject of choice and branching in games, if you haven't checked taken a look before, I think the visual novel Lovesick Darlings is worth checking out. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1151410/LoveSick_Darlings/ It would benefit from a bigger budget, but unlike the vast majority of indie VNs, I find the writing genuinely worthwhile. And it features much more significant use of genuinely consequential choices than most visual novels. So much so in fact that the game's planned length seems to be right around the very limits of what's plausible for a game of its type, because it does raise some combinatorial explosion issues. A 10% longer game would probably only be feasible with the efforts of a large team of writers. A 25% longer game might be unfeasible for a team of any size. I think that TLS hits a great level of interactivity or decisionmaking where your choices as a player actually feel consequential, but I do find it fairly astonishing that you actually find it feasible to juggle as a single person writing team.

Desertopa

Spanish here: If price is low enought maybe you should Risk It? You may be able translate It to other languages later anyway. Even super-profesional translations feel a little off after I learned english better so dont be discouraged by that...translators have It hard

Well, it is a fact that I know "Gallego" and Portuguese because I am from the place where Portugal was born and the Portuguese, but it would feel very strange that a game is translated in Portuguese(if it is not his origin) but not Spanish when it is one of the biggest languages spoken.But I am not gonna complain about that, it is your choice. The only thing I am gonna say is: Even if you translate to portuguese I prefer English over Portuguese, and Spanish over English. I can assure you I speak fluent Portuguese/old Portuguese/Gallego/Spanish because of my birthplace.

BleBle