How the choices, endings and overall gameplay would work in Let’s all love the Avatar (Lalta)!
Lalta is a visual, The main gameplay is relatively the same as any other visual novels. You read the story, until two or more choices pop up and you have to choose to progress a certain route for each choice you pick. Affecting the story in small or major ways.
But what I want to do with this gameplay is not only make the story change as you pick different choices but also make the Avatar (the character you’re playing as) also change as different choices/routes are being chosen.
Throughout the games, the Avatar will have time to conceive plans on how to deal with this new conflict in any way they like (usually based on their ideals,values and morals). And each choice you pick will usually trigger a series of events that will affect their mental state/state of mind and thus also affect their mental state/state of mind and thus also affect the way they perceive the things around them and how they deal with it (especially the main conflict).
This is reflected by the basis for every game having different routes categorized into “Chaos routes, Order routes or Balance Routes.”
The different routes in each set of routes affects the Avatar’s mental state and thus their perception. So if you want to make the Avatar do 180 against their initial beliefs and make them go through a series of horrific events and become a war criminal or terrorist. You can do that! But if you want to maintain their initial beliefs and approach the conflict in a way that is morally acceptable. You can also do that!
Chaos Routes, Order Routes and Balance Routes.
Chaos and Order routes are self explanatory. Chaos routes use methods/values that cross into the realm of chaos to approach the main conflict (Though said chaotic methods could be different depending on the choices being made. Like some could be anarchy and some straight up terrorism).
Order routes are the same as Chaos but with orderly procedures instead.
Order and Chaos routes would have a lot more bad endings than good, because the Avatar is meant to be the Embodiment of Balance, so ofc making up a plan using only either order or chaos would result in more unfortunate outcomes than a successful one, though nothing is stopping you from choosing order and chaos routes over balance routes, and chaos and order routes do have morally good successful endings like balance routes but they wouldn’t be as ethical as the morally acceptable endings of the balance routes.
(Also note: Endings are determined by if you succeed or not and not by if what you’re doing is right or wrong. So you can cause a full fledged economic collapse, and the game would still call that a ‘good’ ending because you succeeded with your plan and defeated the political conflict even if it’s not in a morally acceptable way. So yeah, in the chaos and order routes, you’re gonna be faced with a lot more endings where you fail spectacularly.)
The Balance routes use both chaos and order to fight against the political conflict. Though these routes provide you with a better chance with a more ethical/morally acceptable good endings. They also allow you to use chaos and order in bad ways and lead you to a typical unethical ending. I plan to make the unethical endings in the Balance routes hit more than the unethical endings in the chaos and order routes, as you kinda fail at your main job at being the Avatar.