From an author to another: how are you finding the experience of managing 10 ROs + poly routes?
I love the amount of characters you included, but I can only imagine all the work necessary to plan scenes, romance routes and just to keep track of it all. For you personally, has it been easier/more difficult than you initially imagined?
If you don't mind, I'm also very curious to know how are you going to manage the poly routes (since in one of my WIPs I decided to include four of them): will romantic or at least close interactions between the characters involved happen before MC's choice to pursue a poly ruote? Later in game, are you planning the same scenes with different characters or are you going for completely different scenes depending on the RO(s) chosen?
Sorry for the long ask and the amount of questions, and please accept my admiration for your work, I'm closely following this IF's developement❤
Hi um can I just say I'm so excited for the Chosen One and I love your work! Anyways, now responding to your actual question lol!
So with how many characters there are in FL and how many routes, I've broken them down into scenes that I sort of piece together based on player choices/reputation/relationship. When the story eventually reaches a certain point, it will branch out chapter-wise. So when you reach a certain chapter, you'll have a completely different game than someone who made other choices.
For example, in my startup file it would look something like this;
leydonch7
leydonch8
ebiach7
ebiach8
neutralch7
neutralch8
That sort of thing basically.
Personally, I've found that introducing characters at a paced rate (by region, for my game) has really helped with planning. I know when I'm introducing character A and what their relationship with the MC is or could be. Based on that, I begin to write interactions with them that set up the possibility for any of the potential routes this character can take. Be it romance option, enemy, reluctant ally, or friend, I try to make sure things happen at a relatively good pace.
When it comes to the poly routes, before the MC decides to lock into that route, poly flirt options are unlocked by having a certain romance level with each character.
So you flirt with them both so much individually, and it then unlocks the option to flirt with them at the same time. You're still not locked into that route, but you see the characters grow closer with each other and you, though nothing is strictly romantic yet, and this easily leads into the poly route.
As for romance scenes later in the game, they all differ based on who you are romancing and what route of the game (leydon, ebia, or neutral) you're on. They'll also differ slightly based on your pre-romance relationship (think enemies to lovers, friends to enemies to lovers, betrayal, that sort of thing). I have certain variables coded to remember big interactions and previous relationship percents at various points in the game, and those variables trigger different conversations.
For example, if the prologue I have three variables for your childhood relationship with Florian. They are flordisliked, florliked, and flor neutral.
Then in chapter 1, you can decide how your relationship has progressed with choices that lead to one of the following variables being set to true; florianstillfriends, floriannowfriends, florianneutralnow, florianstillneutral, florianstilldisliked, floriannowdisliked.
Those two variables decide your childhood relationship and how you've both grown, and it's similar with every character.
There are also variables in interactions the game remembers, like hugging Florian in the prologue. If you're still friends and hugged him, you have a much closer relationship. If you hugged him and now dislike him, it hurts him a tad bit more than it would otherwise because he really liked you.
Basically, all that decides what the romance scenes look like. Obviously, if you hated Florian you two wouldn't jump straight to making out. However, an MC that has had a crush on Florian for forever and finds out he likes them too might get to go ahead and swoop in for a kiss.
It's all very fun until I get the variables confused. But hey, that's what beta testing is for!
Long story short this thing is a coding BEHEMOTH and the reason I'm thinking of making it a duology lmao.
I'm equally sorry for my novel-length response lmao! I'm super excited about your work, too, and I'm so glad you like things so far!
