[You Are My Destiny] Ronnies feedback
Jason Petrasko:
My experiences with anime go against your (more logical) scheme for relation pacing. You have it reduced to half-speed from 4 to 6 and at one third-speed from 7 to 10. I assume you want to reflect anime as source material, and in my experiences once a relation snowballs it really doesn't take much longer for it to hit maximum. I'd say half-speed in the middle from 4 to 7, and then resume regular one-to-one increases at the top 8-10. How would that affect the dynamics of play I wonder?
Thunder_God:
Hey Jason!
Sorry it took me so long to get back to this, especially since we were chatting back when you've posted this :O But I always wanted to get back to it in more detail, after giving it more thought.
My knee-jerk reaction is, "I don't want to slavishly pay attention to anime (both in general and Mai-HiME)!"
Then I thought some more of what you said, and it's not only anime, but most movies. I've often thought about the fact that movies have 30 minutes in the end where everything reaches critical mass, and all that was before was mostly build-up to those 30 minutes. I think of this issue mostly with regards to movies' length; I've noticed it's 30 minutes, and it doesn't really matter if the movie is 1.5 or 2.5 hours long. There's just so much we can handle of the roller-coaster.
Then I've thought of it some more. Right now each character, each relationship, has its own pacing. And they're not affected by the pacing of other relationships directly.
In Mai-HiME, most anime, etc. this is not how it happens - there are "Acts", and once the threshold is reached, once the threshold is breached, it happens for everyone. My thoughts are Lord of the Flies here, but I also must think of Bliss Stage (I am actually thinking of mecha anime by way of tangent).
Once the children go insane, once the children begin having sex, it's not just one or two. Once some do, everyone does, all at once.
And then I thought of the fact that "Acts" intrigue me a lot, even though I am sometimes wary of them, have some instinctive recoil from them. And then I chuckled at myself. My game's document is already built in the form of "Acts". It's just that they're more there as thematic gateways (which Acts always are!) and not as a mechanical component to the game.
So right now, I don't want to do it. I am sure it fits the way most stories are told, especially in anime, especially in the genre. But the pacing will be completely different. I think the emotional content of the end-game is already quite heavy and intensive, and once some Children begin fighting others and heavily drawing on relationships, it'll spiral the others into it as well - especially with The Entity's goal of fermenting chaos and discord. I do not see a reason to accelerate this and force it to be 100% strength 100% of the time, as that'll remove some of the space left for quiet, relaxed moments, as befit most such things, and when apocalypse breaks loose (quite likely literally, inside a game), then things will occur as suggested of their own accord, without mechanical incentive.
I do like the idea of possible levers, and if I were to do it, I'd add "thresholds" that dictate and affect relationships for all children once some/a given number reach a certain stage.
Of course, the biggest strike against it right now is that each relationship, each Desire can begin at a different value. Of course the extremists (those higher) will pull those behind screaming and kicking, but right now it already occurs.
Later on, you're also going to interact with those characters more. I think game-play will have to show if things are too slow right now, and if so, too slow for what? Just the anime-feel? Not sure that's reason enough for a change.
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