When Stars Collide - Q&A Part 2 (Patreon)

And here we have the second part of the long Q&A.

Here I will address play style and what I think it will be like to play this game as compared to my others. And I will talk about some of the features and things you can expect to encounter.

Let's go!

Playing and Play style

Is Wil a "self-insert" or player surrogate character?

So I consider "self inserting" a play style and I do not try to define how people play or engage with my games.

But a "player surrogate" (also called a "blank slate") is a character type. They are written in a very specific way and are meant to facilitate self inserting as a play style. You can self insert in games that don't have a player surrogate style character. But "blank slates" both make it easier and encourage this style of play.

People often assume characters with customisation of any kind are meant to be player surrogates. This is not always the case.

None of my characters are intentionally written in a blank way or as empty shells. They all have defined personalities, histories, opinions, etc.

You can self insert if you want to - people self insert into Gilded Shadows and Changeling.

But if you are wanting to know how "blank slate" the MC is, I would argue that outside of their appearance, pronouns, etc, they are pretty well defined.

How do you envision us playing this, like how much skipping do you expect? 

After the first play through, there will be skipping. No doubt.

With a game like this, it's unavoidable. You will encounter some scenes and conversations over and over because each route shares them.

But it's difficult to quantify "how much skipping."

This is due to the "tournament style" choices I've mentioned before (which are technically in the common route. In addition to the obvious ones, there are a lot of choices that aren't necessarily that obvious even though they do align to a specific character.

It's like a hidden tournament. There are 5 (or 6 after Kav is introduced) options, and it's clear there's one for every character. It's just not obvious which is which. You have to choose and observe to figure out if it was the right choice for your romance target.

The point is that even though you are replaying the common route over and over, you cannot always make the same choice in every moment. At least sometimes, you have to choose different stuff to pursue different characters. And I do not know how much content resides in choice scenarios in this game.

There are too many choices and too many variables to really be able to extract that the way I did for Gilded Shadows. GS had a lot of long, narrow branching (as in, there were fewer branches, but they were often very, very large amounts of content) and a lot of teensy little variations scattered throughout.

WSC is more focused on short and wide branching. You have a lot of options in each menu, and a lot of teensy variations - but sometimes they are much smaller in terms of overall length. There are also longer branches in WSC, and these are usually the "LI-centric" scenarios that are a part of their routes. But a lot of the other options are shorter because there are more of them.

This is a screen cap from an old mock up of the flowchart screen. (You can tell it's old because Kav doesn't exist yet.) In one particular moment of this snapshot there are ten possible variations of that moment. And now that Kav exists, that means there are twelve possible variations.

Gilded Shadows never had that width to its branching.

What you skip through on subsequent playthroughs will often be group scenes that are related to the main plot.

Because you do often have to choose between characters to interact with, you're not going to be skipping through a ton of common route "carousel style" encounters with each character as they cycle through to talk to you during every chapter.

How much is original content for each route vs shared? 

So I'm not 100% sure what this is asking.

This could be asking about the LI route to Common route ratio of a single path - which I kind of already answered.

This could also be asking about how similar (or identical) the LI specific content is to other LIs (for instance, how similar is Asher's first kiss moment compared to Daaz's first kiss moment in terms of wording?)

This is what I'm going to answer since I have not answered it yet.

First, I want to specify something though. When I say shared content, I am referring to scenes that are literally shared physically by the routes in the underside of the code.

Just like if you have two kids sharing a cookie. They both taking bites off that exact same cookie. With a shared scene, there's only one and all the routes use it. Scenes feed into the shared content and feed out of the shared content. "Shared Content" is the "overlap" or the "link" when I use phrases like "linked route game" or "overlapping route game."

Duplicated content is when each route has its own copy of the same content. It's like if the two kids from before are each eating their own Oreo. The Oreos look the same, taste the same, have the same ingredients - but there are two of them. With duplicate content, the content is the same, but it's there twice (or more.)

Duplicate content inflates the word count with identical words. If a shared scene is 1000 words, it contributes 1000 words to the word count. If that same scene is duplicated for every love interest, that single scene could be adding 6000 words to the word count, even though the content is exactly the same; it's just being repeated over and over.

Ren'py treats shared and duplicated content differently. So if you know what you're looking for, you can tell when content in a game is duplicated.

Shared content is considered part of the common route.

When it comes to duplicate content between the routes, I would say it's minimal. It does exist because sometimes I would need to have the same events happen for continuity, but for logistical reasons in the code, I couldn't really have that moment be shared. But again, this is not something that happens often.

That said...

It can get confusing because...Original and Identical exist on a spectrum with each other and what exists between them is a wide range of "similarity."

You can have content that is extremely similar but not technically identical or duplicated, and you can have content that is obviously and completely different. And you can have any level of similarity in between.

This is tricky, because I can think two things are substantially different and some players will play it, look me dead in the eye, and say, "That was almost identical." 🤣😭

There is only one main plot 'trunk' in this game. So obviously the events in the LI Routes are somewhat similar. They not only have the same plot, but they literally have scenes they all share. So they have to have some degree of similarity in their individual scenarios for continuity to exist.

That said, there are scenes and moments in the routes which I drafted completely from scratch for every single love interest. There are scenes within routes I modelled more closely off each other because I needed to hit the same story beats for continuity.

It just depends. Similarity is non-quantifiable because everyone views it differently.

Is this a game that you think is more or less conducive to binge playing than your other games? 

This one is hard to answer.

For one, binge players are going to be waiting a while before they play. Secondly, I'm not sure what makes something "binge-able" or not.

I think this is asking about similarity again. Like asking if I think the LI routes are different enough to justify replaying for different characters.

If you are concerned that the LI scenarios are just name swaps where you get identical wording with the names swapped out, that is not the case. Especially for major relationship interactions, but also for a lot of the smaller conversations and moments.

I repeatedly call back to the meeting and hallway walk in Chapter One because that is publicly available but also pretty emblematic of the game as a whole. You walk with the LI to the room and have a totally different conversation each time. Daaz talks about his interest in Veleian culture, Noel talks about feeling responsible for waking the MC up, Raif talks about not liking lies, Asher talks to the MC about the box they were found in...

You have a unique conversation with each one. When you reach your room there is a small section of much more similar wording where each LI says something like "Here's your room, there's a bathroom, contact people if you need help." This bit is more similar across the routes because it needed to be and logically, it felt like everyone would say the same types of things there.

The anatomy of this scene goes like this:

Scene Concept: walking to MC's room (all the scenarios share this)

• Transition into the character moment - the wording here is quite similar but not 100% identical

• Unique conversation with the LI

  •  with a unique topic

  •  vibe specific to that character

  •  banter specific to the character

  •  unique choice options

• Transition out of the scene - the wording here is quite similar but not 100% identical for characters

I use this kind of set up a lot.

It's going to be up to individual players regarding how similar or "original" they feel the LI content is in each route.

And I tried to make the LI scenarios as substantially dissimilar as I could while maintaining my sanity and a cohesive plot. Hopefully that makes it binge-able

Game Content and Features

content you can expect to see in the game and various features I am adding.

Will there be NSFW content? How explicit or how does it compare to Gilded Shadows? Can you turn it off?

Yes, there is NSFW content. The characters do have love scenes. They cannot be turned off - they can be turned to "fade to black" like in Gilded Shadows.

"Fade to Black" means that after the characters kiss and it is clear they are..."in the mood" shall we say - it will kind of skip to "afterwards" or "later" and the love scene will have concluded already having occurred off screen. And you will not obtain that CG.

So the love scene always happens - you just decide if it's on screen or off screen. I don't consider this 'turning it off' such as 'moving it behind closed doors.'

In terms of explicitness, it's a little tricky because there's not really a cut and dry method for quantifying that. The love scenes are a little more explicit than GS.

But if GS was, let's a 4 on a scale of 1 - 5, then WSC is a...4.5.

They're a little more descriptive but it's similar in that the bulk of the description is focused on foreplay with more emphasis on the emotional bond before the scene then quickly moves through to afterwards with not a lot of focus on activities involving.....thrusting of any kind I guess?🤣🤷

They still rely a lot on implication, but things are being really heavily implied at times.

I haven't decided what the CGs will be like yet but again, probably a little spicier than GS without being fully explicit. IDK.

Can you tell us about the MC? Do they have a distinct personality?

Yeah, MC has a developed personality. I think it comes through in chapter one. They are a bit irreverent. They do not like their father's people. They try pretty hard to just shrug things off and not be bothered - or at least to come across that way. But they lie to themselves about how "unbothered" they actually are.

They have a bit of a temper sometimes.

They will tease and troll people in moments as well.

They are equal parts frustrated by their heritage and accepting of it.

They are a distinct person. If you've played my other games and not liked the MCs...you probably won't like this one. If you've played my other games and liked the overly-analytical, snarky dorks who cope with humour? You'll probably like Wil.

MC in When Stars Collide seems to have more knowledge than the MCs in Changeling and Gilded Shadows. They appear to know a lot more than the player and the other characters. How different is it when the players do not have the same knowledge as the MC, and will be learning it later than the MC?

I can see what you're saying, but at the same time I think that the player is always lacking information compared to the MC. The MC knows the basic world building. The MC knows their back story. And you, the player, never know any of that.

There's always stuff the MC knows that you don't know. There's always stuff the LIs know that the MC doesn't know. There's always stuff the MC knows that the LIs don't know. There are just slightly different configurations of this knowledge.

In Changeling and GS, both had a special community that the MC joined and had to learn about. In Changeling, Nora knew nothing about Cryptics. And in GS, Morgan knew only the basics about Espers. In those games, the LIs were in the special community already and knew all the things about it.

WSC doesn't follow that plot pattern. At the start, it may feel a little like a bit of a reversal. MC is already in the 'special community' and others have to learn about them instead.

But in terms of writing, it's not that different because as I said, there's always information that the MC has but the player or LIs do not have. You can see on the handy charts below that it's really just the one line of information distribution that's different.

What technical innovations are in this game that you haven't had in others? 

It has a lot of small things I'm experimenting with - from small things like how various indicators are used to larger things like how the MC's customisation is handled.

I don't know how many innovations this game has in general. A lot of stuff is just new to me, but has been done before by others. Still, here are a few things I've personally never done before or that I haven't seen before:

MC on the choice menu:

One big issue in a lot of VNs is signposting choice tone. It's something that is really difficult to communicate. Choices have to be concise and you also don't want to totally give away (necessarily) what the player is about to unlock. But they also have to be true to the content unlocked. And should communicate enough, the player can make a reasonable deduction about whether a specific choice is the correct course of action.

That's a lot to pack into a single sentence.

So I thought that by having the MC visible and changing expression during choices, I could communicate a little bit more about the choices than I could otherwise. Not every choice warrants a dramatic expression change, but I do think sometimes it's useful to hover over a choice that seems sarcastic or angry and realise the MC is smiling so this is probably meant to be teasing rather than sarcasm.

This MC-Having-Expressions-During-Choices is maybe a bit innovative. I've heard of some other games doing something similar, but it's definitely not a common feature yet.

Affinity indicators

This isn't innovative but isn't something I've done before.

Changeling had no status indicator. GS had a general "affection meter". But this is the first time I'm doing any kind of an indicator like this that indicates character responses to some of the choices you make in the game.

In WSC, you are presented with a lot of choices in early chapters impacting characters differently (Character A may absolutely love a particularly choice while Character C absolutely hates it), I felt it was useful for players to see more directly what each choice does vs just seeing an overview which is what a "meter" like GS shows you.

These kinds of indicators appear in lots of games, but I've never done one before.

Translator

This isn't really an innovation, it's just something not all games need. But characters do often use words in their native languages in this game. These range from compliments to curses. And I thought players would enjoy reading what these strange words mean rather than just seeing unfamiliar words. Whether it's the MC referring to their brother as "brother" in Varien, or Raif calling the MC a "brat" in Ny'fuian...

It seemed fun to both use the languages and to translate them to the player.

Who doesn't want to know how to say "fuck" in a made up alien language?

Glossary Preview

This is something that I haven't really seen before, but is based on watching people stream and do LPs of Gilded Shadows.

My glossary entries are often quite long and detailed because I like world building. But I notice when watching people stream how disruptive it is to the flow of the story to frequently stop (particularly at the start of the game when you are hit with a ton of entry links) to read these huge lore posts.

Especially when you don't necessarily need the entire post to understand the basic context.

Additionally, I often found myself in a tricky position when a new topic or subject would come up during an action sequence or an emotional moment or something - because I didn't want people stopping in the middle of a tense action sequence to read some huge glossary entry.

So I thought it might be more useful if I showed people a short snippet of the entry and then allow them to read the full article if they want. It seems much less disruptive because they can read the first few sentences, get the basic idea and move on quickly if they want.

But they can also click to read the full article if they want as well.

Branch indicator

The branch indicator is just a little icon that lets you know when you are in a "story branch" rather than the main part of the plot tree. It lights up differently depending what type of "branch" you're in. It's pretty small, very subtle...but there.

I am still in the process of implementing this and am undecided about a few factors such as how granular I want this to be.

But the general idea comes from, again, watching LPs and streams and realising that people can't tell when the "new content" from a choice or story branch...stops. They know when they are seeing new content because "skip" stops, but they don't always know where they can start skipping again. I've seen people try to start skipping again, only to realise they're still in the new branched content.

An indicator will help with that, but I guess my questions are - do I want to indicate choice content as well? So you make a choice, you unlock content....do I want an indicator showing how long that content is? Not all choices have a whole lot of content in this game.

Do I want to keep it to character-related content? I don't know yet. We'll see.

Quick Auto Forward Adjust

As I mentioned before, the content in this game ranges from "totally unique" to "somewhat similar" to "quite similar" - there is very little totally identical content in the various routes.

It is unavoidable in a game like this to have content that is varying degrees of similar.

But the problem with "similar" content is that because it's still technically "unseen", you can't skip through it. If you set the skip to "skip all" then you run the risk of missing something interesting because the skip speed is lightning fast.

So when you hit these similar sections you can spam "enter"/"space" to try to go through it quickly or you can set auto forward to a very fast speed and use it to sort of skim the text so you don't have to manually spam enter. This allows the text to go slow enough you can skim through the content as it plays. This is what I like to do in these situations but...

For anyone who uses auto forward at normal speeds as well - this means a lot of going back and forth into settings to constantly adjust the speed.

So now when you have auto forward on a very a slim slider will pop up allowing you to adjust the speed from within the game.

 (adjusting the skip speed is a little trickier in Ren'py and you'd still have to boop back and forth to adjust the seen/unseen toggle, which is why I didn't try to just make a skip speed slider)

Episode/Chapter Recap

I've never seen a game do this before specifically but I'm sure someone else has done it...

 And really it's just a screen that will let me quickly summarise previously released chapters so that

while WSC is in the process of releasing, people can pop in and read a summary of the previous content in case they don't fully remember it, but also don't want to replay it.

I thought about making it fancy so that the game asks you if you want a recap when you boot up after an update, etc. But ultimately I thought it was better to keep it unobtrusive and something players can visit if they want and ignore if they don't want it.

* As of right now, the recap screen requires the MC to be referred to in neutral language since it is loaded before the persistent pronouns and name are loaded. I don't know if I can get around this somehow later on.

Flowcharts

The flowcharts in WSC will definitely be a bit fancier than the ones for Gilded Shadows but honestly a lot of the flowchart system is under the fold and is stuff that will be really useful for devs but that players aren't really going to be aware of.

The flowchart tool Feniks has been working on for me is really cool and has a lot of neat features. But not all of them are above the fold sorts of things.

So from a player perspective, these may just be fairly standard flowcharts...even though the tool itself is really awesome. I don't have a screen cap to show of them yet. But hopefully soon!

I know you did a lot of work on the UI. Please tell us more.

A lot of the work on the UI was just the fact that there are a lot of screens - a lot of different areas.

Glossary, glossary preview, translator, music room, recap screen, flowchart screen, etc, etc, etc, etc.

All of those have to be designed. And sometimes you can re-use stuff (buttons or backgrounds or whatever) but sometimes you need to do a unique design. Much of the UI work I did was just making mock ups and creating button states (what's the button look like if it's idle, if you hover, if it's selected, if it's selected but then you hover?). When you're creating stuff like that, there's not much to talk about because that's just 'make a square and now make the square glow' etc.

It seems like I did a lot of UI work because I redesigned some elements recently - and that was a fair amount of work. And that can really be traced back to me changing the choice menu.

After I added Kav to the game, I was really not liking how the choice menus looked when you had six choices - which happens fairly frequently for a few chapters.

I ended up changing the choices to look like this, which just looks nicer to me than the six very narrow horizontal bars.

 But in this format, the choice buttons kind of interacted weirdly with sprites sometimes? There were moments where the sprites were kind of peeking through the gaps or over the top of the buttons. And it looked...unintentionally funny. So I added that overlay behind the choices to create a separation between the sprites and the choice screen.

I didn't want it to be a simple black overlay. I didn't want a simple grid either so I ended up adding those symbols because they work with the game theme and they look cool.

Those "alien symbols" that appear in the overlay - also appear on the chapter screens.

 And at some point I added them to the main menu because I didn't like how the old one looked and was revamping it.

 And that kind of motif was appearing in some of the new screens I was creating even when I wasn't using the circles themselves...

 And at some point I realised I just had to go back and make the rest of the UI match. So that was what caused the redesign.

A lot of the work I've done recently is just me going into a screen and changing the way a box looks, then repositioning stuff. Ha ha. Though I admit there have been some bigger revamps than that involved as well...

Conclusion

So this wraps up the current questions on play style, features, etc. Hopefully