Do dating games encourage an unhealthy view of relationships?

Just to be perfectly clear, I don't think that letting your experiences and relationships affect you is AT ALL the same thing as deliberately reshaping who you are just to please the people around you.

Using myself as an example, I didn't deliberately change anything about myself in order to please my husband or make him like me more, but I'd be lying if I said that my marriage hasn't changed me. They are two completely different things.

But this is on the consumer right? I mean, there is a responsibility with the companies, for sure, but why is it that it's such a risk to make a more 'realistic' dating sim. Like with sexism in games I think that as consumers we don't have a right to say that none of the responsibility lies with us (I'm not suggesting that you do, btw). But I recognize it's hard, especially with regard to dating games. They are most likely Japanese and if the 'good' games are a risk they will not likely be translated and stuff like that. Which sucks...
I'm actually not sure where I was going with this :P, but it's something to think about, at least.

I love Shinji. :( I don't know, maybe it's because I first watched the series when I was 14 myself (...my grandma didn't know much about anime), but I've never understood the amount of hate he gets.

And actually, speaking of unhealthy views of relationships--if anything were to give me the wrong idea of how relationships work, it wouldn't be the dating sims I've played. Mostly because I don't even remember there being many dating sims when I was younger. (There was Harvest Moon, if that counts at all? And I played Mass Effect when it first came out, but I didn't actually sit down and play it until years later, when I played Dragon Age: Origins. ...I guess Ar tonelico counts, but if that game had influenced me I definitely would've noticed.) But if NGE and the other things I watched/read didn't screw up my view of relationships (and they didn't), nothing fictional will.

I think if your only experience with relationships is seeing bad portrayals in dating sims and other media (and/or real life), then yeah, it can be bad for you and skew your view of the world. And I do really wish there were more routes/games where you aren't oblivious to everything and you can be more proactive/actually have a personality as the protagonist, which is why I try to support games like that whenever I can. Overall, though, I'd have to say it really just depends on the person and I don't think it's happening intentionally.

(This part of the conversation is probably somewhat over by now, but I've been wanting to say something since the thread first popped up and I just now got around to it...)

OH GOD. Oh god. Talked about warped relationships and bad writing! xD

..I love that game, I'm so excited to se it mentioned. It's probably a good example of everything that's wrong in games with a dating feature. Except maybe the actual dive system which was badass in concept. The girls just had no personalities worth discovering. :D

Haven't played the sequels, not sure if the writing got better or worse. My money's on, 'around as bad' at least.

I have the presumption Sakura Taisen is not a dating game. You hang out with the girls. You usually do not go on dates with any of them in their events.
Sakura Taisen is about romancing them though just not in the modern sense of romance. Romance in the philosophical sense. Friendship. Love. Trust.

I love the music and the fictional language (and everyone's stupid nonsensical outfits), though. And some of the characters are interesting/fun! But yes, I don't think there's a single "normal" relationship in the entire series, unless I'm forgetting something. The Dive system kind of ruins any chance for that, since apparently all of the girls are either secretly sadists or masochists when you go into their minds. :| And the AT team seems to have a BDSM fetish of some sort. (I bought AT2 because it came with the soundtrack, not knowing what I was getting myself into...)

Chiming in a bit late here: the article which Anabanana cited in the initial post is something I remember reading a while back, and the "vending machine" analogy it draws bothered me then and continues to bother me now.

Because, on the one hand, yes, there are some potentially problematic things about the way relationships are handled in games, and yes, media can certainly color our approaches to real life.

On the other hand, I have to wonder: what would someone put forth as an alternative? Obviously there are a lot of things that could be done better in TV and films, and in video games too, but with games specifically there's the unavoidable fact that it's a game. However deep the illusion of interactivity and player choice is, when you strip away the trappings of voice acting and dialogue and character design, somewhere in there someone has to somehow quantify and encode a mechanic to determine if and when a romance between the player character and another character occurs.

No matter how you choose to do that, I don't see a way to avoid it being something of a "vending machine," because on a basic level it is still in fact a machine, not an actual person that you're interacting with. The only way to avoid it that I can think of is to go back to the JRPG model in which the PC's personality is for the most part pre-established, and so is their love interest and relationship with them, with no kind of relationship values system or chance of failing to trigger the romance. With the element of choice and the idea of multiple romance options already introduced into RPGs, this is a step that obviously wouldn't fly with basically anyone... and it can't be applied to dating games at all; even in things like cell phone games where you lock in your chosen route from the beginning, there's still the element of choosing responses and the possibility of success or failure, otherwise it wouldn't be a game, it'd be more like watching a digital puppet show.

Ultimately I think a lot of this comes back to how the player chooses to approach it, which is something that no game developer can entirely control. One could easily argue that the intention with BioWare romances is for the player to choose the responses most consistent with how they envision their character and just see what happens; it's by choosing to view the romance as an objective to be obtained, and thus approaching it with an eye towards working the game mechanics to achieve it, that the player turns it into a "vending machine."

Even in the TokiMemo games and other romance games, in which the romance is put forth specifically as the objective, aside from cases in which a route is chosen and locked in at the start it's entirely possible to choose a personality for your player character, proceed accordingly, and discover which possible partner ends up responding the best. I'll use Hakuoki as an example here, although it's probably not the best one: play a more scrappy CUT THAT GUY Chizuru and you'll be likely to end up on Hijikata's route, while a more passive Chizuru attracts Harada more instead. But since it's still a video game, it's inevitable that some players will approach it in a mindset of "meet objective, obtain reward" rather than as an exercise of storytelling.

At least in looking at the evolution of BioWare's game mechanics there's clear progress towards making it more and more about doing things in different ways and getting different but equally valid results, rather than putting forth an objective for the player to succeed or fail at achieving: compare KotOR and Jade Empire's mutally exclusive, single sliding scale morality systems to Dragon Age II's dialogue tone system and Mass Effect 3's reputation system, and DAO's pass/fail influence system to DAII's friendship/rivalry options. And let's face it, there are probably worse messages than "if you're interested in a person, talk to them and show concern for their well-being."

tl;dr - at least some of the problem is in how players approach it, which is out of the hands of game devs and may be inherent in the medium. What would suggest as an alternative?

This was everything I wanted to say yesterday, but was too out of it to. (Seriously, not having a microwave is killing me. I can't believe it's going to be 7 more days until we get one installed because dfeklfasiodfj I'm a picky eater and I can't cook.)

There's none I can think of. As much as I play a game for the story, there's still that mindset of "there is a goal to achieve and I will damn well do what I need to get it". What I love about DAO is that I have different methods in which I can get to it. The romances are sidequests and not the main purpose of the game, and if you don't romance anyone/accidentally lock yourself out, you can still interact with your party and get to know them: And, like any other relationship, if you say something that bothers them, they will get mad. If you say something they agree with, they will be happy. It's more extreme than in real life, definitely, but I find that DAO manages to balance it out pretty well.

As for other dating sims, well, again, it's a game. The point is to end up in a relationship with said character. I find the newer games are improving how they approach this, though: For example, Girl's Side 3 has it that wearing a certain style that isn't necessarily the LI's preference eventually grows on him. That's something awesome, I find! Not to mention there's a distinct difference between VN-style otome games, like Hakuouki, and dating sim/stat raising otome games like TokiMemo.

There definitely is, and the stat-raising dating sims are the ones that are especially bad about that whole overtone of "change yourself to attract the guy you want."

But like you said, newer games are finding ways to improve matters at least a little. It occurs to me that in this sort of game, I think it'd be fun to have something like DAII's friendship/rivalry paths... except perhaps cast more along the lines of "birds of a feather/opposites attract," where you can form a relationship with a guy either by being into the same things he is or being into something different and thus challenging him and opening him up to new experiences. Pursuing a studious bookworm guy as either a smart, studious girl or as an energetic sporty girl, for example.

I have no idea how someone would program that, but if they could I'd enjoy playing it.

Amen to that.

Then maybe the best way to approach relationship-building in a game is to not have the relationships be the point of the game? I remember in Ozzo Ib's LP, people were (jokingly?) saying how the characters they inevitably wind up loving the most are the characters that aren't "gettable" (in the way guys in a dating game are), partly because you don't have to do all the crap you usually need to do to suck up to them or whatever?

True that. Honestly, I would pay for a game where the point is to build friendships. So dating sims without the romance. That would be interesting if done well.

At the same time, are we going to get rid of shooting games as well, since those are equally problematic to people who can't tell the difference between games and reality? After all, we've seen a correlation between FPS and school shootings. If you're going to get rid of all dating sims and visual novel style video games, shouldn't we get rid of other games, books, and TV shows that support unhealthy views?

Not everyone likes games other than dating games. And if they can handle them and they only promote an unhealthy view when played from a certain mindset, it doesn't seem fair to get rid of them because not everyone plays them in a healthy way. Anymore than people should get rid of Lolita because its told from the point-of-view of a pedophile and not everyone can understand that it is a parody that makes an argument against pedophilia. I'm of the opinion that censorship should come from parents and people themselves and shouldn't be forced on the creators, as long as your creation isn't an actual murder, or something.

O_O I don't think anybody here was saying that all dating games should burn or anything, or that creators should necessarily censor themselves. (This goes for any kind of media.) This is the same kind of kneejerk reaction that I see a lot of gamers have when we discuss violence in games- just because certain portrayals of violence or gender or relationships or whatever are problematic, doesn't mean that we're arguing, for example, BAN ALL GAMES THAT OBJECTIFY WOMEN BLARGH or whatever. I understand that a lot of this sentiment is because of people who ARE arguing for censorship and banning all games forever, but at the same time I find it incredibly unproductive to just say, "we can't do anything about it", "it's just the way dating sims are", "there's no need to change anything" instead of, you know, trying to explore the way games treat relationships, and why, the pros and cons, the practical aspects of it, and if there are alternative ways we can go about it. Citing specific examples such as people have done with the Bioware games would be helpful as well. What are examples of games where this relationship-pursuing is done well? Why and how? (That outfit thing that Randissimo mentioned was a good example.) What are examples of games that maybe don't do this as well, or are maybe problematic in other ways? Why? How? That's what I'm interested in, not condemning all dating sims wholesale or absolving them of any responsibility whatsoever to be GOOD games. As a wannabe-VN-creator myself, I think that media can have a lot of power over people, and that we as creators have a social responsibility to not ignore these issues - but at the same time, I think it's fine if you just want to create things for fun and not worry about the social implications too, and of course that's where we all start off as creators, right?

And if you're offended by the suggestion that maybe the best way relationships can be portrayed in games is to have it not be the point? There's a reason that was a question, not an assertion. I don't know. I personally like my relationships subtextual and sexual tension better than actual romance, so part of that is my personal preference talking, but at the same time it might be a good way to get past the whole "vending machine" paradigm? It's precisely because it's used in so many dating games (for various reasons), that it would be fun to try and make (and acknowledge?) games that don't actually follow that paradigm.

All in all, I think that this has been a really nice discussion and that we've teased out quite a few specifics and insights on how relationships have been handled in games, and there are definitely things that I'll take into account when writing my own.

It may very well be that it would be better to do it that way, if as I speculated the problem is to some degree inherent in the medium. At the same time, realistically: the door's already been opened, so closing it isn't really a viable option. Now that the concepts of dating games and optional romance sidequests in RPGs are out there, they're not going to go away unless gamer demand for them does, which seems unlikely. Imagine if BioWare announced that in their next RPG, there would be no romance options; I'm willing to bet that the fan outcry would be epic.

So if we're looking at it from a perspective of "if I'm going to write a game, what can I do to improve this situation"... sure, you personally can choose to make games that don't have playable romance of these kinds in them. That's a perfectly reasonable decision, especially if you as a writer aren't that interested in writing romance to begin with. But I'm not sure I'd consider that a solution so much as it is an evasion of the problem, since the market for romance games will still be there and others will still be writing them. At a guess, that's probably where the leap from what you said to Nekochi's response took place.

If we're looking for ways to address the problem of how romance in games is depicted, that's going to require figuring out a less problematic way to execute it while still actually including it, so that gamers who are interested specifically in romance have a better option than is currently available.

Eeee, sorry my reaction came out that way, I didn't mean for it to sound like that, it's just that I'm a little sensitive about the idea of people saying what someone can and can't create because I'm a writer myself. I agree that a lot of good points have come up and I honestly didn't mean to be hostile, I just wanted to say that I don't think doing away with games where the point is to pursue romance is the solution either.

Honestly, there are far too many people who have the goal of "getting someone" in real life who have never played a single dating sim and I think it's a problem that needs to be addressed in society on several levels. The phrase "ring by spring," meaning their goal is to get engaged before leaving college, is far too commonly used in Christian colleges and it kind of sickens me. I think there needs to be more reinforcement of the idea that it's okay if you don't get married right away (or even ever) and it doesn't mean that you're unattractive and unlovable, both inside and outside the church. There's a tendency within the church for people to make it sound like it's a big deal that you're not married, by saying something like, "oh, that's too bad, I'll pray for you" if you tell them you're single. I was ecstatic to see my church addressing this issue in a sermon not too long ago, saying that being single can be a great thing because it gives you a chance to serve God in ways you don't always have the freedom to do when you're married and that not everyone has to ever get married and all sorts of other positive messages.

Again, this isn't just a thing within religion, there are plenty of parents who try to pressure their kids into getting married who aren't religious, but I'm just using an example that I know of because I'm a Christian and my parents have never been too eager for me to rush into a relationship, understanding when I said I wasn't interested in dating right now and I was unsure whether I wanted to get married. If I met a guy I liked enough, great, but otherwise I was fine being single and a virgin for the rest of my life. They also accepted my decision to not have children, even if I do someday get married. (There may be a lot of things I butt heads with my parents about, but I understand that I'm really pretty lucky in a lot of ways too.)

I think it can't just be simplified to media affecting society, you also have to remember that society affects media. Just look at how TV has changed in the past 60 years. Yeah, TV's brought about some changes, but mostly it's been because things become more acceptable to the majority of society that those sorts of things have been able to be shown on TV. (Have I started to ramble yet? I can't tell anymore.)

Anyway, I'd like to apologize once again, I didn't mean to throw a fit and I'm sorry that it came across that way. I think you've made some great points, even if I don't agree with all of them.

The relationship between society and media is complicated, of course, I'm not denying that (heck, my senior thesis in college was on how literature and reality interact and reflect off each other). I was just taking the angle I did because I'm currently looking at this from the perspective of a creator, haha!

I'll have to agree with Joie de Combat.

I think that the major problem about handling relationship in games is having to consider how much freedom the player is allowed without having characters who feel like puppets.
I really like how things are handled in Bioware games - I played JE, DA and ME - and Tokimemo, because you have time to build a relationship and because the entire "choice the right answer, give the right gift" stuff is handled in that way because of the character you want to romance. As Joie said, you're not supposed to threat the game like a vending machine, you're supposed to play it.
(I'll make an example I often heard people complaining of, it's like trying to play D&D with people who don't care about the role play aspect but just want to level up. I often read guides about games like DA2 where people explain how to sleep with all the characters. From a role play point of view, that hardly works.)
The Tokimemo series has issues, but the romance part is good about that. For istance you can just change your mind, instead of being locked forever in his/her route.

While some VN and other games who have been LPed have a "do the right choice because of reason" and also a "focus only on the guy you want to romance" thing going on which I don't like because you really have to play the game only to get that person and to have magic powers to know how to do that. I know that's the point of playing dating sim, but I don't like that system, because it feels like romance is the only thing worth pursuing in the entire world, and you get only a chance only if you are in that way. So it's the main character who ends up being like a puppet.

I didn't play much dating sims, but personally the only game I had a serious issue with about the entire "Change for your LI!" is Love Revo, which I still didn't play because the entire game revolves around the fact that if you don't fit certain physical parameters, then you aren't worthy even of friendship, from what I gather - because you can't unlock more of the plot. And that's kinda worse than "not worthy of love because no one finds you physically attractive".

I think games subtly influence people in the same way books and movies do. Sure, no one goes out and kills people, but that's the superficial aspect of the game. And there is also a difference between reality and fiction, still I know that some books make opened my eyes about certain matters, even the ones just about fiction. I think the problem is mostly when someone doesn't have the knowledge to affront a game, or a book or a movie.
I mean, I'm twenty years old, if a game tries to make me believe that being in an abusive relationship it's so romantic, I know it's bullshit. I may like some "not wonderful" data sim if it's handled well so I can just think of it as a game who just wants to fulfill some kind of fantasy, but I won't think that's actually a good thing.

They tried to do that in DA2 I think - where they also tried a strictly platonic romance which failed because of how it was handled - a lot of bad things happened to the main character and often some of the companions were the ones supporting her/him. The MC still wasn't the broken one - everyone was broken in that game - but it was something, the entire point of the game was "not having a super hero who saves the day".

I feel worse for the real people who had to do that thing, but I also can't stop thinking about the fact that someone wrote that thing and someone else taught it was okay.

Good to know Ar Tonelico continues being absolutely terrible, yet you can't look away. Really, their stupid bizzare pseudo-sexual elements in that game have no purpose. The relationships and general dynamic of the game would be so much better without them forced upon it. It's really squicky and just really poorly written. I like it for the same reasons tyou do though, some good chars, outfit changes, THAT MUSIC.

Bro, you've played Ar Tonelico too!? Shit, we've all got to find an appropriate thread and discuss this. xD

We're mostly of the same mind about this. You managed to express some things I wasn't sure how to articulate when I first started reading.

Skipping down a bit through the conversation I wasn't here for, I think the conclusion we've come to is, games are better when they're NOT actually dating sims. Games are more fun when you have a more realistic life and interestes outside of DATE DATE DATE. Building a relationship over common bonds and have the OPTION of pursuing them romantically is the most satisfying and natural outcome. I don't agree that the relationships are better when everything is unresolved subtext. I find when things are too ambiguous it's unsatisfying. I think it's more about the approach to the game as a whole.

In my opinion, non-datable characters appeal to people more because their still ambiguous. People like soemthing fundamental about them, whether it be appearance, minor dialogue, their actions, etc. Then because no more information about them is presented, they are inspired to take it to imagination and make a fannon interpretation of what they WANT them to be like, which they fall in love with. In some cases with sequels and such - I wish I could think of a good example off the top of my head - when a character later becomes more major due to fan interest or just the direction the game went, they sometimes lose popularity. The mystery disappears, or the character isn't what they made them up to be in their heads, etc. I think it's that, 'You always want what you can't have,' mentallity. (Or a 'be careful what you wish for' lol)

All that aside, the 'sucking up' is some fo the bad gae mechanics I think we're all saying we'd like games to get away from. Being kind/nice to a person who appriciates it isn't slanderous altogether, but there really should be more depth to the relationship than just that. In general, writing a human relationship in predicted text and options is just a really difficult order to fill! Not ot mention actual restrainsts on the gamemaker to code however many options, track however many stats, be able to channel so many personality types... I don't thiknk you could ever make the majority of people happy short of making some sort of virtual reality AI which can react in real time to your real responses and act accordingly. ..Which seems like a lot fo trouble to go through when most people could/should probably go talk to a PERSON if they want interaction that badly. xD

I think my point is, you've got to keep in mind it's fiction, catering to a fictional scenario. An immersive experience is fun, but still, you have to remember it's NOT you, the writer doesn't know you, and therefore the options will be imperfect.

I'm sorry, I just went on kind of a ramble, and I'm not sure what my point was. xD

I can answer that.

My main problem with dating sim is the same problem I have with other media - the goal is to establish the realtionship, and then you ride off into the sunset!

But, um. What about the actual, you know, relationship? The daily things, when your boyfriend thinks you're overacting about something he did, or when something you wanted to do didn't work out so you sit on some bench and just hang out? Those little things that make a real relationship, not just the big confessions and bonding over your pained past or whatever. I said that in the TokiMemo thread, but I'd love to see more games actually tackle that aspect of romance, not just the road to getting together. Having just played Dandelion furiously, I can say this is one game that tries to that (sometime, anyways, the routes are wildly different in content and tone) despite being a straight out dating sim with stats and LI stalking.) and its' really nice to see a bit normal interactions that isn't about romance, but just generally sharing. Naturally, the heroine must comfort the poor little LI, but that's a value dissonance issue, since it's a korean game - she also does all the of the laundry and cooking, which I doubt many westerns women will do for a bunch of free loaders. The intention is, I think, something like 'you both have your issues but you can help each other through' which, in my mind, is what relationships of any kind are about, on some level.

Actually, I think the west/east value dissonance is a big part of the problem with many dating sims (which are most often japanese). It's completely obvious from their perspective that the girl should be the one to do stuff like cooking for the guy she likes and cleaning for him (jesus, when I found out being a sports team 'manager' meant being their mom I was completely disgusted), and it's supposed to be sweet and feminine rather than the 'using her as maid/mom replacement' feeling most western viewers get. The whole 'changing for him' is also something that's accepted as a norm, an that is rather common in real life, to a degree ("oh, he likes women that wear little makeup? Well, maybe I can skip putting mascara on for a while"). The western culture is really big on individualism (you're great because you're you and don't need to change! Is the PC message you get taught in school), while I noticed many Japanese games have the 'growing into something better' as a theme for characters - the most common example is the shota boy wanting to grow up and be more manly. In a western media, he would have told "you're great as you are, I like you just fine now!" but in the eastern media it's more like 'I will support your efforts and cheer you on' with the underlying message that improving yourself is great for everyone around you. I always have to adjust my mindset before playing or watching eastern media, because I'm so used to the western view (that you are the center of the world), that seeing a Japanese character getting mad at a friend for getting them worried seems so unfair.

tl;dr So I think the way relationships are handled in western and eastern media have different issues, although they obviously share the mindset of 'romance is a goal not a process'. So dating sims =/= romantic comedies.

BROKENFORUMS Y U ONLY LET ONE LIKE

because, this.

(sadly, because more specialized dating games play into the "objective-reward" mindset and set the objective bar very high, it is easy to wind up with forever alone taking this approach. I suppose this might be interpreted by some as sort of message how just being yourself doesn't pay off. Still, it remains my favourite approach to playing these games)

I think they would be if one was completely disconnected from reality. I feel as if the games take a huge break from reality because otherwise they would be incredibly boring and depressing. But I can see how there would be a problem if someone took the "say what you know the other person would like regardless of how you actually feel" approach to befriending and romancing others, and assuming that if you'd do that they'd automatically like you. Unfortunately, a lot of people out there do this, and that's completely without the influence of dating games. I don't think they are bad though, but anything could be a bad influence for different kinds of people.

On a funny note, I always found it weird how you could shower someone with random gifts in Harvest Moon, usually giving them the same stuff everyday, and that somehow makes them magically like you. Doing that in real life would probably weird the other person out rather than making them like you xP

Damn, you're saying giving people grass doesn't make them like you? I've been doing it wrong this whole time...

It's a terrible revelation, I know. I was shocked to discover this as well.

To echo what I was talking about in another thread, I hate how dating games (and otome games in particular) so strongly reinforce gender norms. It's not even just the crappy iPhone romance novel-style otome games, but almost all of them. The protagonist is usually a passive figure who has to sit around talking to people while the men move the plot forward. I think that's worse than the problems that the OP's article talks about. At least in Bioware games you get to be an active agent. You're the protagonist, your actions matter beyond who likes you more or less. Plus, you're able to achieve your goals whether or not you decide to hook up with anyone at all.

I read that and thought about how nice it would be if the issues you were discussing were brought up here as well. So thank you for cross-posting that! :D

I think this is why I often prefer BL games to otome games (what little of either that I've played) - as a guy, I feel like I have more agency and that I'm actually a strong (not in the physical sense) main character who can influence the world around me. (Except Enzai, but being in prison will do that to a person and plus I feel like that game is catering to masochists.) What are some otome games with protagonists that actually have this sense of agency? The Knife of the Traitor is one that I worked on, so that springs to mind immediately. Nebty brought up Magical Diary in the other thread, and I feel like Hanako Games is really good about not making their protagonists into utter doormats. Cinders, of course. What else?

I feel like bringing up Alice from the Kuni No Alice series. Despite the fact the game is classified as an otome game, there's considerably more going for the game than just the romances. In fact, the build up of each relationship is very well done, Alice is a surprisingly strong protagonist who does things because she wants to go back home instead of passively waiting around and letting the people around her do things for her, not to mention the undercurrents in the game that get revealed in the Truth End... She has a presence, if that means anything, and she grows as a person in each route along with each LI. There's a mutual exchange happening and it doesn't feel bland.

I'm also thinking about the games by the people who made Musketeer: Le Sang Du Chevalier, but seeing as I haven't actually played the games and only know about them through a couple of reviews I read, maybe I'm wrong. Those protagonists do seem pretty proactive, though. (Considering Musketeer has a genderbent d'Artagnan and she can actually fight and wins battles, that's. Pretty awesome. And her motivation goes beyond "Oh, I want to find love." Same story for Alice whose reason for going around talking to people in the game is for the purpose of leaving Wonderland.)

There's a couple of more examples I want to bring up, but I can't remember the series' name and it's only the later games that really have an active protagonist, I think. (That, and I don't have much in terms of sources talking about the game, so maybe I'm wrong about them.)

I do agree, though, most games have pretty bland or passive MCs that don't do much in terms of being proactive.

OH, ANOTHER GAME WITH A GOOD PROTAG: The Pirate Mermaid. Very promising. It's absolutely beautiful. She's strong-willed and goes out to get what she wants, it's fantastic.

See, that's also problematic. I play Otome games because I want to be a girl, dammit. If I wanted to play as a guy I would just go play 90% of all games ever. :T

The Knife of the Traitor was very good. Re: Alistair's main character is never a victim and it's her actions that move the story forward. Lucky Rabbit Reflex has an MC that's quite in-control as well. Scheherazade is wonderful because Sadie actually has a really important goal beyond "find a man". She wants to become the greatest archaeologist in the world and by doing so perhaps find out where her missing parents are.

Still if we're looking at pure dating games, that's a depressingly small amount.

I agree that that's a problem! It's just that with the general lack of good, active female protagonists, I pretty much have to play as a guy if I want to play games at all. :<

It's interesting that you say that, because at least in BG2, my main complaint with a lot of romances (including mods) is how passive they are. It's just because of how the romance is structured -- you have to wait on a timer for your love interest to initiate the next talk, and (in the vanilla game, and some mods) can't talk to your LI at all outside of this. Mods that involve player-initiated dialogue and flirts don't necessarily let you take a more active role in how the romance progresses, but at least they make me feel like I'm not just waiting around until my LI deigns to talk to me, and that counts for something.

I've never played Dragon Age, so I don't know how they handled the romance structure there. Carth in Knights of the Old Republic, though, felt passive (you have to wait for a trigger to get the next dialogue) except with the added annoyance of having to initiate dialogue with him when you think the trigger's hit, instead of waiting for him to do it himself. So I don't think that was an improvement.

I know you get to be an active agent in the main plot, and you talked about that in your post, but in an RPG I like to have a lot more freedom in my romance than games sometimes want to give me. Whereas in a visual novel, where you're usually playing a more pre-defined character, I don't mind as much if the romance is more passive. The character isn't me or my creation; I'm just reading a story.

After all this talk I kind of want to LP Baldur's Gate 2 romance mods. Please send help.

They fine-tuned the romances a lot with DA:O and sort of in ME1. For one thing, in DA:O the "end point" isn't just sex. Your partner has romance-specific dialogue sprinkled around up to and including the ending. Also, you take a more active role just by virtue of being the one to always initiate things. It's not just a choice between "be nice to x vs y", you actually have to seek the character out, talk to them, flirt with them a bit, and after that it's usually the player who's given the ultimate choice about whether to initiate things or break off the relationship. For instance, in DA:O my character had sex with Zevran but then decided that she didn't want a serious relationship, and the game let me tell him that.

One more reason to wish my computer could run DA:O. *sigh*

You could get a console. I hear 360s are going for pretty cheap these days.

I don't really hold it against BG2 that they have that passive feeling because that was really the first time they had done anything of the kind and they hadn't really hammered out the best way to make companion conversations work yet. You can't start random conversations with anyone in your group at all, that stuff all gets much more refined in later games.

I support this endeavor, especially if the Romantic Encounters mod counts.
Actually, no. Not RE >_>
When I did my first Big World install I didn't even know that I had that, and so I.... stumbled.... on it during rescuing Haer'dalis. With the mage. That was a thing that happened.


About BG2, I liked that the protag can "date" (that can broken off at any time) during the game, and so they can go through the squabbles and up-and-downs of a relationship that I've never really found outside of Western games. Like in Tokimeki, it's more of a screenshot of a potential romance. In cases where the game ends when dating is established, I think it does paint an unrealistic picture that the couple is happy 2getha4eva. Does this make sense? Probably not, I should be asleep @_@

I never really noticed that the "waiting for the lovetalk to trigger" mechanic in BG2 could be problematic and make it seem like the protag is passive in the relationship, but now I do, thanks for pointing that out! :D

I wonder if you could figure out a way of actually handling inconsistency in player choices across the whole game's worth of dialogues.

As mentioned above, one of the problems with romances that makes them feel so mechanical is because the player usually has full agency to say the complete range of designer defined dialogue choices at any point without any particular penalty for picking philosophically or factually inconsistent ones when talking to different people. To put it simply, you can be all things to all men most of the time and even when you can't manage that you can at least come close.

You'd need to create a sort of philosophical/informational/character model of the player character's personality inferred from the sum total of their dialogue choices so far and then also maintain a separate series of models of the player character that represent the sides of themselves they have shown to other important NPCs through their interactions with them. So each important NPC would have their own view of the player character which may or may not be a true representation.

Then you would need to simulate some realistic information transferral between the various NPC conversation constructed player character models and between the models and news worthy events that the player gets involved in. So for example if the player presents himself as a pious character to one member of his close circle but tells another he doesn't believe at all, eventually that information would be shared between the two NPCs and they may confront the player together, or alternatively if the player burns down a church during the course of the game the pious character would be doubly upset over both the church burning AND from being lied to by the player.

The player characters own internal model (representing the 'true' picture of how the player has presented their character to the game engine) could provide some guidance as to how consistent new dialogue choices are based on their past actions (perhaps some reminder tooltips like 'I already told Maria I believe in aliens' when hovering over the option to tell a science nerd that of course aliens are ridiculous). Of course, there should then also be some handling of players who try to 'beat' the model anyway and be all things to all the ladies & guys but the game would then know what the player was trying to do and could handle the situation appropriately. If the player tries to seduce two different characters they wouldn't immediately know that unless it happened right in front of them but they may eventually find out and act depending on the skill of the player at keeping his multiple lives separate and the personalities & moralities of the characters involved.


Anyway, it would be a complicated thing to do but if you were working on a game primarily about relationships it seems like it would be worth exploring better ways of relationship modelling than just pushing up a single 'likes player' stat based only on an accumulation of possibly inconsistent conversation choices.


The other thing to get rid of is probably locking relationships in games to a timetable determined by extrinsic events rather than the timetable at which they occur. Too many dating games tie the relationship development and endpoint to something like the school timetable or the final fight with the big dragon which then usually prevents games from exploring other aspects of relationships like how to keep things going and still have fun in the longer term. Real life relationships don't reach their climax with a quick shag before a dragon fight so why should game relationships. Why can't a game handle everything from a couple that starts dating full-time in the first term of school to one that doesn't flower until the last dance? Why can't I have a series of romances and breakups across my school career rather than half heartedly dating a group of people in parallel and then sticking with one because that's the only available way to play the game? If you let the relationships have their own timetable then they will likely flow a lot more naturally with less awkward pauses while you wait for the extrinsic events to catch up with the relationship progress, and you can still work in some classic game style grinding with activities that better fit that mould like school work or killing monsters in an RPG.

But then how will games magically gloss over the actual process of maintaining your relationship if it doesn't timeskip to an idealized future? D: