plot structure and player interaction
main reference: Storylets: You Want Them from emily short's blog & a few other posts, mostly linked from that oneearly on I waffled a lot over how much player choice to put in, route structure, etc - there were a lot of things I loved from VNs with and without significant player input, and it's hard to settle - you want plot to matter, but you want players to feel engaged. right now I'm on a roughly 3 act structure. the first can be considered what is known in VNs as a common route (with the lowest amount of branching but perhaps the most variety in scenes), the second is where more and more scenes are excluded by past player choice, and the third is split entirely into two different endings.
within each act is a sort of alternating free scene/plot track format. when you start an act, there are key plot scenes - the main quest more or less. after that, the player is allowed to chose from relevant "free scenes," a mix of the side quests and character stories, as they please, spending time for that day. each scene updates the "world state" - a collection of hidden variables describing the player's location in the story, relationships with others, misc flags, etc, your game progress more or less.
as you go through free scenes, new free scenes may become available based on your state - either because you completed their required preceding scenes, or because a relationship or other variable has changed. sometimes, plot track scenes will interrupt - if something important changes because of a previous scene, or when the day is over, for example.
fate hollow/ataraxia is a good reference for something kinda close to what i have in mind, as well as the game sleeper: citizen. I'm not entirely sure if I want a resource - time, energy, etc - to manage, or just a basic like "do this in the morning, do this in the afternoon, do this at night" structure.
when you've activated certain flags, you're sent into the end track for that act. It won't be possible to view all possible free scenes in a given playthrough - access to these is limited by 'time' and shifting world state. I'd like to get a good balance where the player needs to feel like time should be spent somewhat wisely but not feel like they are pressured or missing out content. Looser than like, Persona - I don't want players to feel like they've lost out on certain plot threads because of an invisible clock.
i haven't started work on this system yet so this is all Subject to Change!! i'll probably do another post with diagrams when I get to work on it.