GGGB vs ORS: Structure
GGGB and ORS follow a very similar structure, but have a couple key differences.
One that’s plain to see is the fact that having only one playable character in GGGB forced me to make Ashley one of the participants in almost every sex scene. I also noticed having a female MC caused the majority of the NPCs to be guys, even though Ash could have a few lesbian relationships with her friends. Having Ian and Lena as playable characters doesn’t only mean I can have way more variety when combining characters for hot and original sex scenes, but also allowed me to introduce more female NPCs in the cast, and I really love those new characters! (Holly, Alison, Cindy, Cherry, Emma...) But the major structural key element for both games lies in their status quo (yeah, I’m gonna use that word a lot from now on).
As I said before, with GGGB I wanted to push choice mechanics and branching possibilities to the extreme, to the point where it’s almost ridiculous (the thug route, for example). The fun was the exploration of how widely paths could vary, and you could end up with a very different status quo depending on your choices, affecting not only Ash but the surrounding characters. The downside to this kind of structure, other than the previously mentioned lack of profundity on its themes, was the lack of said status quo. Things could vary so much that the overall structure lost consistency and became an amalgam of “what if” scenarios, without a defined or conducting plotline.
This problem is intrinsic to all choice-based and open-ended games and stories, I think, and ORS faces the same conundrum. After all, if the story is set in stone, there’s no room for the player to make meaningful choices, and that’s what this is all about! But I wanted ORS to have a more solid structure and a better defined status quo that could serve as a frame for me as a writer and the player. That meant narrowing the possible outcomes, meaning, Ian and Lena’s possible permutations are more focused. Don’t get this wrong, this doesn’t mean there are less permutations than in GGGB: the difference lies in how the choices affect that status quo. While in GGGB your choices created different, varied and somewhat unconnected status quo, with ORS my goal is making your choices affect a single, deeply interconnected status quo. This is what I refer to when I talk about making a more focused and nuanced gaming experience. Hopefully this way your choices as both Ian and Lena will be even more meaningful, having a deeper impact on their environment and personal relationships, where connexions are more clear and explicit and well structured.
What do you think, you prefer the more wide-and-shallowstructure of GGGB or is ORS’s narrow-and-deepstructure gripping you more into the story?
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Comments (11)
Talking in general about games this is kind of a false dichotomy isn’t it? As you ideally would want both wide and deep, I mean. In some genres that’s easier to achieve than others, in most strategy games (yeah, I’ve been playing CK3 and Stellaris A LOT latlly, lol) you can build your empire wide or tall, you can focus on commerce and diplomacy or in warfare, in technology or religion, and so on; and every experience and mechanic (ideally) is unique and fully developed. Intricate narrative complicates things, of course, so usually strategy games get rid of most of it -although many try some kind of procedural storytelling where more or less timed events kind of shape a general narrative for the game- but for a game so focused in the story as ORS it’s trickier. But in the end it’s just a matter of resources, if a developer has and infinite amount of time and money he could make a game that has a lot of branches, some of them exclusive to each other, completely fleshed out. Skyrim, with its many faults, could be an example of that: beyond the main story of the campaign there were a lot of let’s call them oversized sidequest that allowed the player to become a vampire or a werewolf, a master assassin or… well, whatever. All of that with a fully fleshed out narrative, in some instances even more interesting than the main story, I’d dare say. That’s why (and given that we are not throwing at you and infinite amount of money, heh) I’m not particularly concerned about deadlines regarding ORS. I would rather have a product that follows your vision than a strictly “on time” one. So I guess what I’m saying is that if at some point you feel the need to make ORS wider while at the same time keeping its storytelling as deep as it is, but fear that this could be too time consuming, as far as I’m concerned by all means go for it.
I would say wide and shallow.
I already touched on this in a prior post. And I don't think an either/or is fair to the quality of your writing. Both game structures have their place and you excel in both of them. I really like both games. BUT I think GGGB is a much more rare gem in this game environment and even harder to pull of like this. For me it was ground breaking. So, from purely personal preference, GGGB will always be more special.
I dont think that its too early to tell. I think that if we keep tackling these questions by simply saying its too early, we as consumers would end up having a negative outlook on a finished product that we had a chance to impact. The question isn't comparison, its narrow and deep, or wide range. With that being said, I've never played a game like ORS before in this particular setting. The deep connection between characters and the direction it is going is very promising. I've also never played a game like GGGB with that much content. This prompt multiple play throughs without expecting the same thing . Right now we have the best of both worlds, and a happy medium is something I feel like i gravitate towards. I like the wide range of explicit content (versus outcome) and the narrow/deep vision of the story we are inevitably hooked on now in ORS.
After reading John.b.c's response I realize that I might have jumped the gun a little earlier and I have added to my earlier post to better reflect the asked question.
As everybody has said so far, it feels a little early to judge how ORS stand up to GGGB. GGGB gave us a plethora of choices and paths that we could explore, the replayability of GGGB is very high and for those of you who have only played through it once or twice I recommend trying it again and again and again. You will marvel at where you choices can take you. With ORS, I can't yet see where my choices will take me or the impact of my choices. Yes the backgrounds and the nuances of the store feel more solid and worked out, but what will they amount to? How much of an impact will my choices have? And how high is the re-playability? All of these questions I think are too soon to answer. I will wait and see. Though I will say that so far I enjoy playing ORS. I have re-thought my reply and while I stand by thinking it is too early to judge ORS vs GGGB. I do have thoughts on whether I prefer Narrow-and-Deep or Wide-shallow: In the perfect setting I think most of us would like Deep-and-Wide though this path might lead to madness and not finishing the game (which we would certainly not like). I think I want some sort of compromise. In some ways GGGB might be too shallow. The trick with ORS would be to bring us Depths with enough Width that we can still get different outcomes and get re-playability out of it. What is enough Width? In my opinion if there's 4 or more different paths that is usually enough 1 path is too few (the choices don't impact the story and we end up with just a graphic novel). However with 2 different MC's in ORS the question is will 4 different paths suffice or do you need 3-4 different paths for each MC? I do not know. But as my main interest lies with Lena (I enjoy playing Ian too, but....) I hope for some path options for her and I think I can already see the outline of some of them. Conclusion: I think you do not have to worry, ORS will offer enough Width and the depth so far is great.
It feels like it's too early to tell how much our choices affect the story in ORS yet. But usually I prefer something that's a bit more defined than in GGGB. The Witcher 2 & 3 are good mainstream examples of this, I think. The story is well defined and several plot points happen no matter what, but your options to solve them, and the circumstances why the plot points happen are different depending on your previous choices, and the flavour texts are changed. Of course, some events are unique and the endings are very different. That makes the replayability interesting, since you know that some things will happen, but you get to do some things different so you can change the outcome for that particular event.
I think that sidequests are good instances where the author can go a bit off the rails. If you create a big storyline fork in the main story early you create a lot of extra work and it becomes much harder to not have a diluted storyline from that point, but sidequests are self-contained. No real need to think about the causalities since a side quest has a defined start and end.
I think its difficult to tell right now as I feel we're still not into the meat of the story, or choices, with ORS. The varied paths GGGB gave you were fantastic though, and as long as ORS allows us to have that nuanced story/scenes then adding the extra depth and structure it has will serve it well
I always prefer Narrow & Deep structure. As far as GGGB, yes Ashley could have sex with just about anyone & was in 90% of all scenes, but one thing I liked seeing in that wide and shallow method is seeing what would happen if you didn't do that choice. Seeing people hooking up behind your back, Jack seducing Eve for example. I also think if you went this route, was to choose to play the perspectives of just Ian, Lena, or both. Focusing on one character & seeing how your choices effect those around you always interest me.
ORS for me. The "red string" in the name setup my expectations and its beautifully met as well.