When Stars Collide - Q&A Part 1 (Patreon)

Hello everyone! And welcome to the start of the Q&A of doom.

Yes. Doom.

There is a lot of doom below in fact. You should beware.

(I'm just kidding. but anyone who has known me for two seconds knows that I cannot give simple answers. I'm sorry.)

I have taken questions from whoever had questions to ask and I shall do my best to answer them here. This is a pretty long Q&A so...I've broken it into questions about the release style, about the structure, content, and about challenges, takeaways and the future.

I think I will also break it into multiple posts simply because I don't think Patreon really suits long-form writing and this gets...long.

In the first part we will talk about the release style and structure, why I chose to release this game in episodes, etc.

We will also talk about the linked route structure and how that breaks down into the routes, paths, and everything. I also answer some questions about play time and what have you.

So let's jump in!

Release Style

Questions about the hows and whys of the release of WSC.

When will the first episode release

I do not know. It's largely predicated on finishing up the UI features and then getting some basic playtesting done first, which is what I'm working on right now.

Soon(ish), I hope. 😭

Is there a reason you chose to release in episodes for this game?

Yes, of course. Ha ha. I always have a reason even if it's just 'because I wanted to try it.'

There are few reasons I chose an episodic release style for this game, though.

The first is...because I wanted to try it! LoL!

Basically, I wanted to experiment with something I haven't tried before. This game is kind of a science lab for me experimenting with different things. Episodic releases seem to work well for some developers and I wanted to see if it was something sustainable for me - for instance is it easier/harder than the way I've been doing it?

When you're making games, it's really easy to get stuck in doing the same thing over and over and I think it's good to try new things every so often.

I thought a chapter-by-chapter style release might be helpful for ensuring I space out all the art requirements so I don't do more damage to my hand since it is already becoming more and more difficult to draw without pain. (This isn't a self-care issue for those already jumping to their feet demanding I take care of myself. It is just arthritis and damage built up over years of abusing my hand. I can take the best care of myself now and it's still gonna hurt).

So the jury is still out on whether this release style is easier on me. I'll find out when I start releasing.

But those are some of my main reasons.

Will all your games be episodic going forward?

No. Not the way this one will be. This chapter-by-chapter situation is probably a one-time thing, though I do intend to try other formats in the future. Maybe route by route next time?

The chapter-by-chapter style episodic release strikes me as much more difficult if you're dealing with self-contained routes like Gilded Shadows. It works best, I think, for overlapping or linked routes, which is what WSC has...

But I found I don't really like writing linked routes all that much and prefer separated routes. So I don't think I'll write another game in this format, which means I won't release in this exact way again probably.

How many episodes will there be? How long and how often will you release episodes?

(Combined two questions here.)

The episodes vary in length from 71,000 words to 130,000 words. I am not sure how many months I'll need between episodes. Hopefully no more than three but who knows.

The CURRENT plan (subject to change if I don't like this strategy) is:

Episode 1:

Prologue (revamped)

Chapter One (revamped)

Chapter Two (new content)

Episode 2:

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Episode 3:

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Episode 4:

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Episode 5:

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Episode 6:

Chapter Eleven(s)

Chapter Twelve(s)

Chapter Thirteen(s)

(each of these chapters has 6 versions - one for each character, hence...plural)

Game Structure

Buckle up. Some of these questions came from people on my server who've heard my game design rambles. They know the questions to ask. 🤣

Does this game have separate routes like Gilded Shadows and Changeling?

No. This game isn't a separate route game. Instead, it's more of a linked or overlapping route structure.

You can think of it as being similar in structure to something like When the Night Comes or Ebon Light, where there is a single plot line that is followed and shared in places by all the characters.

I wrote in this style because I had never done it before. I wasn't sure if it was easier, harder, or really what the differences were.

As I mentioned earlier, it's really easy to get stuck doing the same thing in game development. I've done two games with separate routes and wanted to try a different structure.

I also learned I do not like writing in this structure as much as I prefer separate routes, so I probably won't do another game set up this way.

I basically learned it's way harder for me and also not my thing.

How does the overlapping route style differ from your other games?

Well aside from the fact that the routes themselves don't really separate into individual stories (the most obvious difference, of course), I think the overall exploration objectives and the way choices are used in this game also both differ.

For GS and Changeling, they were focused on exploring story and plot, world, and lore through subsequent playthroughs because you couldn't experience all of that in any single route.

Changeling explored different sub-communities within the Cryptic community as a whole in each route - you didn't learn a lot about Werewolves in Marc's route, for example, because Marc is a Vampire. You learned about the Vampire community.

Gilded Shadows explored different parts of the world and different factions within that world. Each playthrough gave you a totally new set of story events and placed different characters into those events so you could watch the story flow in a totally new way each time.

In GS your choices sometimes shifted important story moments (like whether Morgan heals Jack herself or whether the people in Caissa's mansion accepted her more readily). So you are, again, encouraged to explore those different paths through the story to see different events play out.

WSC is different in that while it still has an expansive plot and expansive lore, you're not replaying to explore different aspects of the world and different elements of story development. The focus is more on exploring different character interactions within the same sequence of events.

Rather than looking at how the story can shift or plot can shift based on who you're with, it frames each character within the same story events and shows you a more intimate look at how different characters react to the same plot happening around them.

In that sense, I feel like it's much more character-interaction-focused. The game wants you to explore those different conversations and interactions more than it wants you to seek out wild new plot developments.

That isn't to say there isn't a plot in this game. There is, in fact, a lot of plot - and the story ultimately goes through different events through the climax depending whose route you are following. But it's not about exploring how the plot or story changes from your choices. It's about exploring the different character interactions within that plot.

I really think that to enjoy a game like this you have to be in that mindset of not looking for how the plot will change but looking for how the character interactions change.

How long are the character routes in this game?

Short answer: 

~ 80,000 words.

Long answer:

In order to answer this in a clear way, we have to define what a "route" is.

In a game like Gilded Shadows, this is easy because the routes are totally separate with clear dividing lines between them. Ari's route exists in its own space-time, its own timeline and the other routes are completely disconnected from it.

In WSC, "route" is more ambiguous because of the game set up.

You can think of a route as a specific journey between places that is defined by way points between the start and end point. Routes emphasise decisions about the path to a destination.

A path, however, is a more general term that gives you a sort of overview of the track taken on that journey.

So Asher's "Path" is the overall journey through the game while pursuing Asher. And Asher's route are those "way points" where you interact 1x1 with him and develop the personal relationship and romance. In other words, the "route" is just the way points and the "path" includes those way points and the common/linked scenes. Here is a visual:

The "path" of each play through shares those common route scenarios but the "route" of each character is made up of these distinct way points and interactions with various characters.

Looking at it this way, the "route" of each character is about 80,000 words. The path through the game for each character will be significantly longer and is a little harder to calculate accurately.

But like...how long is a Path?

I just said it's harder to calculate! (╬▔皿▔)╯

Seriously though.

The reason why it's hard to give a rough estimate is that, while I can calculate the total "common route" word count...

Realistically a "path" doesn't include all the common route content.

It would include the un-missable (the unconditional) scenes - think of the "meeting scene" in chapter one. But shouldn't, in my opinion, include content you can't conceivably obtain on an specific LI route or that you likely wouldn't be accessing even if given the opportunity.

Let me explain:

Sometimes in the game you are presented with choices where you are picking between the love interests regarding who you want to interact with in a specific way. Now, sometimes this sends you to a "route scene" (one of those way points from before), but sometimes it just gives you a more personal interaction with a character within the "common" or "shared" scene where that choice resides.

An example of this, again, is the meeting in chapter one. You choose who to sit beside and you have a slightly different interaction with each character based on that choice. But that interaction happens within the common route scene - it's a part of that scene. So I consider it part of the common route and it gets counted in the common route's word count.

But generally if you're pursuing Daaz, for example, you're not going to choose to sit next to Asher. The Sit-Next-to-Asher scenario isn't really a part of Daaz's path through the game.

And sometimes these "tournament style choices" are contributing a large amount of words to the word count. Case in point, in the meeting scene "choose who to sit by" menu - each of those options is about 700 words long making the entire menu set about 3500 words.

Conceivably, only about 700 words in this moment are a part of each character's path. It gets really complicated to go in and extract those moments out of the common route to determine a "path" word count.

And there are actually a lot of moments like that one within the first 4 chapters. I don't know for sure how many words. It could be 25,000 words or it could be 50,000 words depending on how I count it.

Additionally there is "No Love Interest" path for the possibility the player does not unlock anyone's route. When you are on an LI path, that content for not having a love interest isn't contributing at all to the "LI Path" right? It's literally inaccessible to you if you have a love interest. And that is somewhere around 15,000-20,000 words at least - maybe even a little more.

That is not an insignificant word count and it's definitely not exact.

That's why I feel like it's a bit hard to say. I don't think the above content counts but I also don't know for sure how much of the common route is made up by tournament options and the "no LI" options. Not for sure. I have a very rough estimate.

I think a path is probably around 150,000 - 175,000 words. This would include:

Any shared "common route scene"

Any common route choice related to the specific LI

Any LI-Route scenes

All the choice options within the LI Route scenes

About 80,000 words of 150-175k is specifically "LI Route" and the rest is "Common route"

What do you expect the playtime for the game to be? And how do you calculate that?

Short answer: 

~ 40 hours.

Long answer: 

There are multiple ways to calculate word count. I personally think the most accurate and straightforward way is to divide the words by a word-consumption rate.

Amount of words / How fast you are consuming the words = Rough Time Estimate

This tells you how long it would take someone to read each word in the game one time.

I don't believe it is fair or accurate to arbitrarily try to add in extra time for things like making choices or watching the sprites. There's too much variability and no real way to calculate this. If I were to add in extra time for this stuff - it would be a completely made up number. I have seen people dither for minutes over each choice and I have seen people make choices within ten seconds. Some people play with a guide and do not dither over choices at all.

Additionally I know that some teams have looked at the overall path content and then multiplied that by the number of paths in the game. This method counts the common route multiple times. But realistically few players are going to play the common route in its entirety at normal speed multiple times. Most players will skip through that content.

So I feel like this is a wildly inaccurate way of calculating that will inflate the playtime based on a play style that doesn't align with 99% of player behaviour.

So that brings us back to word count / consumption rate.

This game isn't voiced, so the consumption rate is going to be based on an average reading speed rather than a speaking speed.

Google searches give a range of about 250-270 words per minute for a typical adult. Based on my own observations during the Changeling beta test as well as a survey I did a few years ago - when you throw out the fantastical claims of people reading 800 words a minute leisurely while retaining everything they read...

My findings put everyone squarely in the realm of 250-270 words per minute on average.

I used to use 270 wpm to calculate, but I noticed that when I used that, most players were spending a lot more time in the game than my estimates. So I've switched to sticking with 250 wpm.

That equals to 15,000 word per hour.

And currently, with 615,000 words / 15000 word per hour...

It gives a playtime of about 41 hours total for the game.

Conclusion

This is the first part of the Q&A. Please be sure to check out the other parts for more info!