Evolution of the Conversation Mini-Game

I am SO GLAD that people like the conversation mini-game...
Because the path to building it was fraught with PAIN. Let's take a look!

So, over three years ago, I began work on this visual novel idea. I'd LOVE to write a fleshed-out version of my whole personal story behind this, but let's try to keep it real brief for now.

First, I tried a kinetic novel, with no choices. Didn't like that enough. I wanted most the sex scenes I was writing to have a chance to be the "first time" between the couple, because there's a unique kind of magic you really only get once with those scenes.

So then I let you choose whether or not to skip a sex scene. Simple, kinda fun. But I got bored. I wanted her to feel a little more alive.

ENTER RNG.

Randomness allowed me to play without knowing exactly what was going to happen. If I added "good" and "bad" choices, there'd be no fucking point because I would never ever pick bad choices. So...

I made a game where you're offered a "risky" choice and a "safe" choice. The safe choice would make her like you "10 points" more. The risky one would make her like you anywhere from -100 to +100 points "more." These affection points would determine the odds that she wants to fuck you at key moments. And thus, the very first conversation mini-game was born, along with the RNG gating for sex scenes.

Pros:
I found I really liked the "thrill" of doing something brazen like hugging her tightly, only to have her hug me back even tighter, when there was no guarantee she'd do so! It felt sweet! I also loved her wanting to fuck me as a result of that success!
Cons:
Failing sucked.

There was too much out of my control. There was no "learning" or "getting better" at it. I wanted there to be good and bad choices, and I wanted to not know what they were, but I wanted to be able to make educated guesses. That's when I realized what I really wanted was a game. One with, you know, SOME skill. So then I made a game that worked like this:

You always have three choices: Subtlety, Sympathy, and Passion. For each girl, there's a 1/2 chance she likes one of those options, a 1/3 chance she likes another, and a 1/6 chance for the last one. Each personality would be randomized at the start of each game, so it'd work like this:

I'm talking to Amy. I try Sympathy. She doesn't like it. I try Passion, I succeed! I try Passion again, I succeed! I start to wonder if her 50% odds got allotted towards Passion. I try again, and fail. Next time I talk to her, I remember that Passion didn't work, so I try something else.

Basically, you'd try to figure out what her random personality was, and then prioritize your three choices based on that. And remembering what you chose last between conversations was one final way to add a little skill.

"Random Personality"
Pros:
Simple, skill-influenced randomness. Abstracted conversations worked surprisingly well for staying immersed!
Cons:
Too simple, so it still got boring. Also, didn't want "passionate" interactions to work right off the bat.

So THEN I tried a card game, where you get "green," "blue," or "red" cards, along with wild cards. If you played a card, you'd play all cards of that color, and draw that many new ones.

My favorite version of this was where SHE would also get a hand of cards, and take turns playing them with you. If you matched the same color she did or vice-versa, the streak would build. If a green card was played after a red card or vice-versa, the streak would break. Blue bridged the gap between them, and would keep the streak the same.

The problem with this game was how fucking powerful those streaks would get. A 4-stage conversation would be worth about twice as much as a 3-stage conversation. If you've ever wondered why "Band * " doubles your Band action but "Amy * " just makes it go from 3 stages to 4, that old version of the game is why. And then one day I realized the bonuses don't need to be symmetrical anyway so I left it that way and liked it.

There was actually another issue, though: the gameplay did not really feel like a conversation. Really, I know I had a number of issues with it but I just don't remember anymore.

Anyway.

I completely fucking re-vamped the mini-game a good 8 times or so. I considered having 5 colors of cards, or trying to create a visual puzzle (Huniepop was a decent example, but I wanted to stick with Ren'Py's choice-based engine), or more complicated dice-rolling with stat spending (I LOVE stat spending), but every time the vibe was just too "game-y."

And every time, the programming would take days. Then I'd try it, dislike it, and proceed to pace around for many more days trying to figure out why I disliked it, and then MANY more days trying to plan out a better version that captured all my favorite things from the past games.

That very early example with just the three choices and random personality ALWAYS stuck with me, because of how much I liked the abstract conversation structure.

Eventually, FINALLY, I came up with the idea of generating cards as a resource during conversation, that could be saved and used in other conversations. I suppose I flavored it in my head as the idea of "building confidence." Or energy. And as soon as I tried it with the abstracted conversation, I felt so FUCKING RELIEVED because I realized I'd finally found a version I could be happy with. So I polished it up, and here we are!

Oh, and did I mention I made a SEX MINI-GAME, TOO? That was always a parallel goal, to have the sex mini-game mirror the mechanics of the conversation one. I did some complicated state-machine bullshit to have CG's chain together in a semi-random order that would make sense. And I liked it. And then I scrapped it.

I bring it up because part of why I liked the "generating cards" idea was so you could spend those cards during sex, or even build up more. I loved the idea of being able to spend a red card at the pivotal climax moment to make it like, FUUUCK yeah.

However, I also realized that I really liked scripted sex scenes with maybe occasional flavors of randomness. And unique scenes like having sex on the couch or in the car would limit me to just the couch or car images, so I wouldn't really want the mini-game for every sex scene.

Which is why instead, I'm just considering a very light system allowing you to build up and spend cards during a few nice moments during sex, and that's it. Or near the end of the game, when you're having ongoing affairs all the time, to maybe use it for "stock" sex scenes. Not sure yet.

Anyway, I wonder if anyone will actually read all this and give a shit lol, but it's been a hell of a journey and it feels good to just write it all out. If you're there, thanks for reading!