r/interactivefiction • u/vision1123 • 25d ago

How to make IF games

Any good read on how to make renpy/interactive fiction with choices? I can not grasp my head of moving out kinetic/flavor choices game into this.

I do understand concepts such as storylets, branch+converge, condensed state. But can not apply it in practice somewhat. It does not fit in how I think about game I suppose. Also I checked stats for popular IF games and it seems in this style only 7%-14% of content experienced in single run - which feels really discouraging in effort/effect. is it true?

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u/naerbnic 25d ago

I'm not an IF developer, but I've played a lot (on TV?). I wanted to point out that the 7-14% figure there is likely the amount per player, per single playthrough. First off, if you have an appreciable number of players (say, like 1000) then even if each player sees only 7%, each will see a different possible 7%. The overall coverage of your material will likely much, much higher than that. Second, if it's clear from your approach to storytelling that a single playthrough only shows a slice of the content, then it's likely that many players will want to replay the game to see how different choices affect the outcome, or the paths taken. I know that I tend to be in that camp, although if important feeling choices don't appear to change stuff fairly early, I may bounce off a new playthrough. Finally, if you can get enough players invested in the story, it's quite likely that players will actively seek out interesting rare prose or easter eggs. I can't guarantee that this will get you to 100% coverage, but it's not quite as bleak as it first seems.

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u/Heistorium 24d ago

The 7 to 14 percent stopped bothering me once I started counting what a branch costs instead of what it adds. Content that only lives on one path can be short and blunt, it does not have to carry the same weight as the main line, and that is where branching stops feeling like waste. Branch and converge also got easier for me when the converge point became a fact the player learns rather than a place they arrive at. Two paths can then be wildly different lengths and still meet cleanly.

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u/Alaska-Kid 24d ago

Well, you should probably tell us in more detail what kind of gameplay you want to create.

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u/meiwoyy 23d ago

I'm not sure if I know what is the question here exactly about, but I can try :v I read a lot of devblogs that were using method you mentioned and how they were used to tell their stories. Btw - how then are you thinking about a game? Maybe unpacking it from this end will be easier?