Aliquis

Makes sense. Overcomplicating my first attempt at a VN is probably a bad idea anyway. I was mostly just concerned that with a simple branching system anything more than a single choice close to the end would mean a prohibitive amount of extra writing.

Hmm, thanks. So, both points of view here so far, with some very valid arguments on both sides. For me it comes down to deciding between simplicity/ease to see all endings and engaging the player more. It's not a dating game, so the player doesn't need to choose which character they'll end up with. Most VN's I'm familiar with seem to have that, so it's a bit hard to use them as examples. And I don't really want to have outright bad endings either. It's more like a choice between "lawful" and "chaotic" endings, if that makes sense.

Hello everyone, First post here! So after thinking about it for a while, I have finally decided to give it a go and try making a small visual novel. I've been working on the script for a while, and am currently at a "partially completed first draft" stage. However, it's also the stage where I have to start writing endings, and I need to make some big decisions about the structure of my VN. So I was wondering if I could get some advice from more experienced developers here. So, I want my VN to have choices in it. I could have made it completely linear of course (and maybe I actually will, who knows), but I feel like more interactivity will help draw the player in and help get them more invested in the plot (and, hopefully, distract them from my less-that-stellar writing). And there are two things that I'm considering: 1) Having a linear "common route" that takes roughly 80% of the game length, and then a choice that determines which of the two ending routes the player is going to see. 2) A "points"-based system (there is probably a proper name for this, so help me out here). Basically, during the common route. the player is presented with several relatively small choices. They change the following scene a bit, but otherwise the player stays on the common route, no matter what option they choose. But behind the scenes, each choice affects a certain score, and when the player approaches the ending, that score (a "what kind of person is the main character" stat, basically) determines which ending they are going to get, based on their past choices. 1 is simpler to implement and gives the player more control, but 2 provides more interactivity in the common route. So my idea is to combine those two: player makes score-choices during the common route, then gets to choose between ending route 1 and ending route 2. and once there, based on their score, they can get ending 1a, 1b, 2a or 2b. My main worry is that the score system is a bit opaque and would be troublesome for players who want to see all the endings. Do you think it's a good idea?