Respecting Player Fantasies in Dating Sims

[Music] thank you uh all right so this is respecting player fantasies and dating Sims and if you saw a game attached to this title no you didn't all right let's get started who the hell am I uh my name is Betty I'm an aquarius I'm single and I'm always picking the wrong romance choice in a BioWare game I need to speak my truth varic is hot and I should be able to kiss him [Music] we got a good crowd here today uh so I've worked on quite a few projects I got my start at Ubisoft where I worked on Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Assassin's Creed Valhalla um uh I've also worked in the Indie

space I was a writer on a heart space shipbreaker uh I've been a teacher for pixels Montreal which is a program that teaches people to write narratives for games it gets their uh portfolios up it's a great networking exercise it's a really great program I also contributed to the UBC game writing program online uh and then I worked uh on a game called lovelink uh which you may recognize but no you don't uh and currently I'm at a studio called servios which is located in Los Angeles and makes very cool VR games check it out all right let's get to the talk why you're all here uh so the purpose of this talk is one determining the uh determine your audience early and respect that audience you can't change audiences halfway through the game unless your game really resonated with somebody who wasn't supposed to I call this the

My Little Pony syndrome next is identifying the player fantasy in your characters and then how to course correct for a live audience for the sake of this talk we're going to be talking about a live audience game and then finally how to be creative within the genre of this game because sometimes it feels like everything's been done and the thing that you want to do really badly has already been done so what's the point anyway but stay tuned all right so we got a little content warning for this one I've got some minor male nudity some butts and abs as well as discussion of sex and sexuality so if you don't like that I'll give you a moment to leave but I assume that you're all here because you like that [Laughter] so here's our hypothetical game all art by me there's over 16 endings you guys

uh this is yeah this is hypothetical lover um so we've determined our game next we've got to determine who the audience for this game is going to be so I decided to pick uh heterosexual women well predominantly heterosexual women ages 18 to 32 with bisexual women and gay men as our secondary audiences so we're going to aim to hit this lovely demographic right here um so we have to research you know we've picked a demographic we have to research what is that demographic into so I used Google and I found out this is what they're into I don't know who this guy is the Internet calls him daddy please don't tell me his name uh um so you know there is a level of expectation of a certain type of physical attractiveness within the overall consumers of this game type in

this particular demographic so the that's my long way of saying abs maybe a little bit of Bulge if you're feeling saucy so we've got we've got our game we've got our archetype we have the audience expectation so let's get moving on to coming up with a character so this is a heavy hitter [Laughter] he's very popular this is Randy um so we're going to take a moment to to really think about what the player fantasy is in here what do heterosexual women bisexual women gay men ages 18 to

32 find appealing about the cowboy fantasy so how do we find that out we got a research research research research these are all real book titles this is what I found when I Googled it I'm a big fan of branding the virgin So based on the cowboy archetype we're gonna have certain expectations of being more of an outdoorsy person rope play uh loving horses it's a big big among horse girls I'm not gonna lie as well as people who like a stoic man who works with its hands and likes to take a shirt off you know real Matthew McConaughey pre-true detective type and you know you can do your research however you want you can post a thread

on Twitter I use Google what do women like what do cowboys do um it's it hasn't it hasn't said me wrong so far uh you know this isn't high school you can use Wikipedia um and so once you've gotten kind of a general idea from reading through grumpy cowboy and branding the Virgin and seeing kind of what the set pieces are what the general narrative beats are what what your players are going to expect from this character if they pick Randy um then you get to work on Randy and what his story is going to be So based on all of this Randy's kinda animals he works with his hands he's a bit of he's a bit of a service top he likes some role play some rope Play Rather though I think he might be into role play as well but it's very standard stuff like like sexy nurse he's he doesn't know Dungeons and

Dragons very well um so now that we've identified all of these tropes about Cowboy characters we need to figure out like I mean what he's like to talk to because yeah someone can be into role play and animals but like did the text a lot do they you know do they get along with their parents these are important things that you need to think about when you're coming up with a character for anything let alone a character for a romance um and once we kind of find what really fascinates us narratively about this character that's what I like to call the narrative seed and I've made a cool little diagram about this um so the narrative seed kind of it has two very important things which is what excites the writer and what the writer wants to excite the player with so while we start out with a basic idea a basic design of the character we need

to move forward with what the narrative is going to be and what the narrative is going to be about um in the case of Randy you know there are several directions that you could go you could say that he's come he lives on a ranch but the ranch is in financial trouble the bank's trying to take the ranch away and now all of this romance that you have is fraught and it's involved with you know we've got those money problems we gotta rustle up some money sometimes it might be about animals you know he runs a horse rescue and there's this one horse that's just you know it's the most strong intense horse he's ever met it's just been impossible to get its trust but you player you have a magic touch with this horse I call this the horse girl narrative you know you can come up with a number of things Randy is a staunch environmentalist because he loves the land so much and he hates oil so much and there's a big oil field that's being

built right next to his Ranch that's going to ruin the lives of him and his chickens and and all of that and then the story becomes about that so that's your narrative seed and the way that it grows into a beautiful narrative a beautiful story so from there once we figured out what our story is going to be once we figured out our archetypes for Randy we can come up with a bit more of a love profile for Randy so we figure out what his love language is he's a quality time and acts of service guy he likes to spend time looking at the sunset with you he's a real fan of sourdough starters so he likes to bring you bread that's his act of service um he doesn't really uh he doesn't like to text he's not a phone guy it can be really infuriating because he'll be like Randy where are we meeting for dinner and he replies in like 10 hours right before you're supposed to be there Randy be more considerate please um he's shy around people but he's you

know a lot more active around animals he's a lot more talkative he talks to his pigs his cows his chickens um and as I said he loves baked goods he's a big fan of musicals as you saw he loves Oklahoma and he lost his parents at a young age perhaps to an oil Baron you know it's it's our collaborative story we'll find out maybe they were killed by vampires I'm not sure so we get uh we release Randy's uh series as a set of episodes we're going to call them episodes for this we're going to say that it's a season because this is a live service game and so Randy is performing really well on the first few episodes but there seems to be an extreme drop off around episode 3 episode 4. and there's a pro you know that's a flop that's a problem because this is a very well performing character he's one of our All-Stars people love Randy but they don't love this episode

of Randy and we need to find out what the problem is there so this is this is the real bread and butter here folks this is tried and true tested information so if you're going to take notes of one slide this is the one um so what players do not want and you got to think about yourself as players too and even just as consumers of media what stuff really drives you nuts um and you'll find it there so a character who needs the player to solve all their problems players are playing this for their own Escape they're not playing this to feel like they're the therapist to Randy you know they want a man who can take care of himself a person who can take care of themself a person who's looking after their needs because as the player this is their vacation from their lives and whatever their life is if it's messy stressful whatever we've all got stuff going on and we all play video games to make that a little bit easier the second thing is very similar to the

first thing but a character who doesn't pay enough attention to the player like if you feel like you have to chase around a fictional man [Music] uh the third one this one's a bit heavier which is a sexual encounter without player consent and this is something that used to be a bit more of a problem with older games people are getting more aware of this but basically gating any sexual encounter with uh hey there are butts in this warning if your parents are in the room they'll probably walk in just the moment that there's a bare ass on your screen um because people might even be down to like having a sexual fun time with Randy but they might also be on the bus sitting next to a child uh so having the option to say thanks but maybe later very important um disregard for established Canon you know if you want to get Reddit really mad if you want to get any fan really mad you know if for example with Randy we established that his favorite musical is Oklahoma in episode one what if in

episode five or the episode our problem episode three he says that Chicago's his favorite Randy what is the truth uh love triangles are an iffy one some people love them some people not a huge fan a lot of us who grew up in a certain time period or tired of having them shoved down our throats and so in the case of love triangles you really gotta Telegraph that early because if season two begins and it's like hello my name is Paolo and I am your other Amor and you're like man I'm just trying to hang out with Randy can you go away no I'm here for the whole season good whereas people who know you know they see that they see the book cover with both Randy and Paulo holding on to the player it's like okay so there's going to be a love interest up in this let me let me go let me go

um and then the last one is subverted expectations which is why I joked about vampires but we'll be bringing it up um so a vampire storyline in a cowboy romance you gotta you also gotta Telegraph this if you're a cowboy character is suddenly gonna have to deal with vampires you know people who are setting themselves up for a nice romantic walk with Matthew McConaughey are not expecting to turn the co you know turn around a corner and find buffy and Spike standing there it's not the kind of crossover that people are looking for in this genre unless you know you're making Ultimate Showdown of ultimate Destiny The Dating Game uh yeah so now that we've looked at all of this I'm going to give us a little bit of a pop quiz with this next slide so here's here's the scene uh what do you guys think uh is the cause of the player friction in this in

this sequence this is this person in the front here wearing a wolverine shirt I think it says Wolverine I'm so sorry if it doesn't oh you see Irvine I can read okay Randy's feeling a little out of character that's I'm I like that answer but I'm looking for a very specific one I'm going to ask this person in the sorry um oh the answer that this fellow has given us is that they feel that Randy is being represented in out of character way and that's how Randy wouldn't approach a sensual scene

this person here in the um plaid shirt that's correct this is an ungated sexual encounter so I'm got a little switchy here um there's going to be so many Barbie dolls smacking against each other uh so players didn't you know following up on this answer Randy as we said is someone who's a little bit shy so giving him a sex scene this early on in the season might feel a little out of character for players who are looking for a slow burn Texas man romance whereas it's also just like you know somebody's on the bus and then 2D butt all over their screen while they're sitting next to I don't know a pastor and it's just it's very alienating um so now we're now we're in Fix-It mode

how do we fix it and do we fix it because these two things are connected uh sometimes if it's just a little bit of blip you just leave it um but we gotta consider how popular is this character with the fan base in the case of Randy he's one of our top performers he's top three let's say and keeping his fan base you know happy and continuing is is part of what keeps the game going so we pay more attention to Randy than we would say somebody who's less popular and how do we find out how the fan base is reacting to this well there's lots of ways to get that feedback you know you can check message boards user metrics feedback you know Community is all that sort of thing and then the next thing you have to think about is how easy is the fix so if it's in this case just one scene of one episode where we put a sensuality gate that's an easy fix that's something that we can get patched in a day maybe two

uh if as I joked earlier with Paolo being there for the entire season that's not something you can patch that's just something fans are going to have to live with uh and then you know the last thing is are the fans being reasonable because players are very passionate and we appreciate their passion but sometimes you know they might get a little bit irritated because a character is wearing the wrong colored boxers and it's like okay guys we love you we respect you enough so with that in mind how do we stay creative we're going to Pivot to dino he's not a top earner but he's unique and we love him uh Dino has a small very passionate fan base and a writer who was very passionate about Dino's storyline and

and houdino is as a person because yeah he is a dino furry but he also has a literature degree and this is a case where we need to again look back to who our main audience for this game is and so in the case of Dino he's in the game hypothetical lover is is kind of it's for the Facebook crowd you know it's for people who aren't your average internet Savvy meme Queens so that's why Dino isn't doing so popular I feel like Dino would be pulling more numbers if he was in one of these games and like this is a perfectly great way to make a dating Sim don't get me wrong but there is you know you're giving people what they want on the cover so they know what to expect this is still following all of the lessons that we've learned before which is that if they buy a game with a bunch of birds on it

and that means they're cool with kissing birds or at the very least intrigued um whereas if they buy the game that I've created hypothetical boyfriend and there's a bird kissing scene they're like I was promised taught by a hot boys actually I'm not sure where this bird thing came in um and you know these are these are all incredibly great valid ways of making a dating Sim these are just all things you have to think about when you're making one uh but once you've gained your players attention the best way to keep it is by being genuine and heartfelt so from silly game to more basic game regardless the players are gonna love it if you put your effort and your heart into it um and that's where we get to the hard truths and the hard truths which is knowing what your audience wants and Catering to it is success but offering

them something new may open up new interests so people who previously would have written Dino off have had the game hypothetical boyfriend for about three months now and they they're waiting for the new update of Randy and Joseph and Adam but you know they've never played Dino before and well he isn't a bruised and then suddenly suddenly you got a hardcore Dino fan in the making so basic designs and archetypes will always be the most popular which is to say unfortunately white blonde hunks uh do the highest numbers I wish that it was different um but fun writing can bring in worry players um so like you know you'll get the most swipes the most engagement with the characters that fit into the archetypes that are the most sexualized the most kinkified if you will but if people are playing it and they're engaging in the community and they hear about this new character who really isn't their type

but is super fun got a really interesting story really fun story they might begin engaging with that as well if it's not something that they would typically into but fun writing does a lot and then the final point is basic character archetypes can include gender bending twists but you need to foreshadow it in the promotional material this is the vampire storyline in the Randy storyline so if you're gonna have vampires and cowboys I love it we love it it's a great idea you gotta include it on the cover or at the very least have Randy be like oh man I've been stocking up on garlic and silver something fierce someone keeps biting my cows and I don't think it's El Chupacabra uh so as we're getting to the end here to recap one you gotta find your audience two you gotta find your fantasy three you gotta know how to fix that fantasy if it's not hitting the right

marks and lastly have fun and write the romance that only you can share because everybody's got a love story in their heart somewhere and everybody should share it thank you I think we're pretty close to time I think we've got about five minutes if I'm checking in um so I'm gonna I have time for a little bit of answering questions but after that I'll be in the area if you have additional that you want to ask me I think I'm seeing a person over here with a green jacket that they keep raising their hand oh no they're sewing I'm so sorry can I use this thing um yes how does this thing work hello hi hi um yeah so I was really curious about the subverting expectations and not hiding it on the cover um so I think there's a couple years ago

there's a game that came out called Doki Doki literature club and that whole game like it hides what it is in like the first 15 minutes and then but everyone loves it because like it's you know not spoilers but like it does other stuff after I have a question for you yes game because you heard other people talking about the writing yeah there we go people wouldn't have bought it if they hadn't heard the word of mouth the expectations subversion is great it's a great game I've played it but that's a game that relies heavily on Word of Mouth and a lot of the topics that we touched on today so that's a great example thank you very much um over here hey which one uh whichever one of you rock paper scissors on the microphone all right yeah one two three one two three [Laughter]

um so I was curious and how you incorporate player choice in the narrative because it seems like you are mostly talking about like a mostly linear narrative with not a lot of branching paths like do you have anything um like how would you approach like what kind of choices would you give the player if you were doing a branching narrative game this is a great question and my experience in this type of game doesn't involve branching narrative I just didn't cover it much today because I was focusing more on player fantasy so stuff that I would you know conversations are a great place to include branching you know what do you want to ask Randy about his cows his chickens his horses um how do you want to respond to Randy's great questions and thoughts about life in the universe we really want the player to feel like this is a mutual relationship of getting to know each other another great place to include player choice is Avatar customization because everybody wants to be a cute little doll hanging out with

these hot boys um I'm gonna move on to this question because I'm trying to keep my answers short thank you though um I was wondering if you had anything to say on like how dating Sim elements have been incorporated into different genres because it seems like it's harder to sell what the fantasy is on the cover if it's just one element of like a broader game it's yeah it can be very difficult because dating Sims can be such complex games themselves that try to incorporate them as a mini game is a great place to have scope bloat followed by scope cutting and that's why in a lot of games that include romance elements that you know you really want to have a fully realized romantic relationship with a character but you're limited to three dates and a sex scene because that's just what's in within the scope and so that's something that you need to think about really early on and try not to Blue Sky try to Red Sky that early on and be like okay what's the least thing

that we can ship and are we happy with that because if we're not let's not include it yes Kirby Cat hello yes um my question was outside of writing how do you still make how do you still enhance Arch types that are similar to players but still have your own unique spin on it so you're true to your own fantasy um for me it's always about real people that's I mean and that sounds over simple but like everyone can have an idea of what a Cowboy is but part of the research too is like finding out that like Randy really hates mornings because you know it reminds him of his parents death or he just likes to sleep in but um that too one of those two things um but because he works on a farm he has to and then that just creates a better place for human connection because haha I do that thank you very much

um I think that's the last of our questions and that's great because we're at time so thanks so much for coming out today everybody foreign [Music]