Allright guys, heres a new one. How many of you think having a strong romantic angle is one way of makin sure your game does not sell? Let me make it clear that by "romantic angle" I do not mean a Max Payne 2 kind of storyline. Its more of a squad based thing, with ruthless administration, counter insurgency and organized crime. Now, would a strong female character who gets romantically involved with the main PC be out of place in this? Logos Incarnatus

This is ''a new one''? We''ve talked about ren''ai (dating sim) games in here several times. And we had the thread about characters to fall in love with, and some threads about what level of eroticism works in games... Why don''t you try our nice search engine (now that it''s finally fixed ;P ) and see what you find?

That said, I think it''s difficult to build a linear plot around a romance and have it appeal to a large audience, because people are very picky about which characters they consider attractive enough in appearance and personality to make good romantic objects, and similarly which characters they can identify with as romantic subjects without considering them obnoxious or boring. People don''t like to read/view/play romances about characters they are not attracted to, and this is especially a problem if both your characters and your audience are straight, because the male half of your audience will not be interested in your hero and the female half of your audience will not be interested in your heroine.

That said, the romantic plot structure with it''s increasing highs and lows works great as a frame for a strategy/sim game.

I meant new as in new for me- I havent been around here that long actually. Now, the point is the romance is not the central element in the storyline, but a near-central theme. If we consider the epic structure, for example, the main theme is the quest for glory, in whatever form, and the romance is an incidental.A very important incidental, but still an incidetal. It is the same in this case. The backbone of the story is about the quest for power and supremacy- with all its attendant sub-plots of betrayal and revenge, cloak and dagger, etc, and the romance is to run as a parallel,a counterpoint to the main thread. Is this feasible?

you mean dinamically?? or just following the linear plot??

describe more what you want (how do you handle story in your game as ex), there is many mecanism to handle this in game, but we need just more information to help you (jap game has explore a little this area in a simulated narrated sense, and the sim, in a more "objective" simulation,
there is a german game in progress call single too ( www.single-the-game.com ) but i don''t really know about it...

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
be good
be evil
but do it WELL
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

That''s the worst idea I ever heard. Romance is suck.

Romance in games tend to be a bit a non-sequiter. All things considered, its not the best time to have some traditional boy-girl teasing and verbal foreplay going on when bullets are zipping past and explosions are ''dun happening. Also, its expected that amazing death going on around a character would have some psychological impact, a bit of shell shock, maybe some post-traumatic stress disorder. And as much as James Bond gets laid, even he skips around the romance and goes straight for the most bang for his buck.

Point: TRY SOMETHING ELSE.

if you are planning on adding "romance" to the game, please don''t make it like a game. The best romance in games is usually scripted one, because the nonlinear ones always are more work than motivation. Besides, it''s very unrealistic that you happen to have two people that actually like each other. Usually only one of them have anykind of feelings.

As for the dynamic-part, if you want to have it in your game, arka, you should not make the point to be able to remember all stuff and try to win the lady''s heart. But instead, it could be all about choices. Will you give up the fight to save her (an most likely your own) life. and Trust. What happens if it''s broken... these could be part of the story too.