Finding Miranda: Paths

This is the second in a series of posts about our upcoming game, "Finding Miranda."  Although I don't intend to write any actual spoilers here, if you'd prefer for the entire game to be a surprise, you probably shouldn't read this.

Depending on how you count them, I've written 6 or 7 of these erotic games.  When writing something like this, there's always a tradeoff in between "story" and "game."  The amount of time it takes to do a page is relatively fixed.  So, if you're going to do 1000 pages and there is only one path through the game, you can have the story be a full 1000 pages long.  However, if there are two full paths through the game, then the story in either path can only be 500 pages long.  Clearly that story will be less complex than the 1000 page one.  Similarly, if there are 10 paths, then the story can be at most 100 pages long.  An alternate option is to spend more time writing the game.  If you can do 500 pages in 6 months, you can spend a full year to get 1000 done.  

Navigating through these tradeoffs is a challenge.  Should I have made one game where you decide whether to date Elsa, Jessica, or Miranda?  None of them would have been released yet.  Or should I do three separate games, one with Elsa, one with Jessica, and one with Miranda, and as such, allow you to play Elsa and Jessica's games before Miranda is complete?   Should I tell a complex story with few branches, or a simpler one with more?  Should I take 6 months to finish the game, or a year?  There are no "right" and "wrong" answers here, and, frankly, I'm experimenting as I go.

I don't intend to do one game with multiple unrelated paths.  In that case, I'd just release two games.  But I have been thinking quite a bit about how many playthroughs it takes to see all of the significant content in a game.  By "significant" I'm thinking along the lines of different scenes, not occasional responses.  In terms of Elsa, that's going to the park instead of the beach, but not how Elsa responds to you when you say something off type.  You'd have to be REALLY into my writing if you went through and found every extraneous bit of dialog in these games.  That doesn't seem like a very good use of your time.

In terms of my previous games, you could see all of the content in Life with Keeley in one playthrough.  Coffee for Keisha took two.  Dreaming with Elsa kind of took two and a quarter if you add in the Chloe path.  And Redemption for Jessika was basically one and a quarter if you add in the Chloe path.  

In Finding Miranda, there are enough choices and content for you to play the game four times.  I've worked hard to keep the story complex and interesting because, much to my detractors' chagrin, I think that story is the most important part of these games.  What this means is that there are some parts you do on every playthrough, and some that you choose between.  I've also worked hard to distribute the story across the four playthroughs.  Play it once on any path and the story will make sense.  But, play it again on a different path, and you'll learn more about what's going on or who these characters are, etc.  And, we've also spent more time making this game than the previous ones.  There are a number of reasons why Miranda is going on a year now, but the complexity that comes from having multiple paths through the game is one of them.

I'm hoping I've found the right tradeoff between choices and story here.  I've told the story I want to tell, so I'm comfortable with that, but is it the story you want to read?  I guess we'll see.  We're currently at 1100 pages and a similar number of pictures.  We've got two more scenes to do, but one of them is the largest and most complex one in the game.  It feels like we'll probably be finished in January, but I'm not fully sure.  Regardless, I hope you like it.

Tlaero