Within Your Eyes
WYE Friendship Bars
Hello again!
Sorry for another update, but I wanted to address this.
I've decided to remove the friendship bars from the game. This decision comes after reflecting on feedback that choice outcomes didn't feel impactful in their current form. To address this, I've introduced a new system that offers a more dynamic and, hopefully, realistic depiction of character relationships.
Instead of static bars, this new approach will display the current mood and thoughts of characters based on your interactions. This change aims to add depth and realism to how relationships evolve throughout the story.
I believe this system will provide a more nuanced and engaging way to see the consequences of your choices, potentially deepening your connection with the characters.
Here's an example of what it will look like, along with another upcoming change in the relationships menu:
I personally feel a lot better with this system, and although I may make some adjustments before the update, this is roughly what it will look like. Regardless, Iโm eager to hear your thoughts. What do you think? Let me know!
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
I do love me some great interface in IF, it makes up for half of the fun of playing.
Still, I would like to have some tangible indication of how my choices in dialogue affect the relationship. I normally have hard time deciphering what certain face expressions mean, and it reflects in games too.
With number values I could always double check if my choices unwittingly didn't cause damage. With moods only changing at certain thresholds, it will be more challenging.
Would making the number values become optio ally visible be possible? Or perhaps, optional in-game notifications of approval change, like it is done in Wayfarer?
Even still, this update feels like a change for the better. It makes the relations feel more natural.
Thank you for your continuous work on this great game. I enjoy it greatly.
Thank you for your feedback!
I'm actually considering adding an option to make relationship impact visibility customizable at the start of the game. Players would be able to choose from:
I hope these options will accommodate various preferences. I think I'll be keeping the 'thoughts and moods' separate from this, however.
That sounds very reasonable, thank you for taking my opinion under consideration.
To me, bars feel like a perfect advantage to people. They think they can just get something perfectly and not expect nothing bad to happen. You can eat 1 person mad and get the other one happy, but this is different without this bar. We don't have to worry about that. We have to worry about how we word to a character now No I can insult the princess without feeling like an asshole..!๐
Sounds great! I actually really dislike the bars with % because I always feel like I have to change my decision so the fictional characters won't hate me, lol. Can't wait to see this play out. Also, I adore seeing into the RO's head and love seeing their feelings.
I was comfortable with the friendship bars but this does sound really interesting and I have enjoyed this method as well. It does give a more clear representation of your status in terms of feelings though may be a bit harder to way check comparatively between characters or with characters that have a more aloof or more reserved attitude. And I really liked the example you showed. Looking forward to seeing the update.
Now do the same with guilt bar
I have been redoing a lot of systems, the Guilt one included! I'll be going over it in an update soon.
Ohhhh. As much as I like seeing numbers go up, seeing interpretations of statistics is nice. I like it especially since it involves relationships that usually are not defined by numbers. Makes me treat them unlike statistics where I want to raise the number for competitive reasons.
oooh, I always love it when I see this in games!! I get to see into the character's head, I'm not constantly checking if the relationship bar went up or down it's great. I do usually like it best personally when there is both a bar and a character thought because sometimes you see a character thought and it's vague on if what they're thinking is negative or positive or like... a secret third thing, but I could get why you wouldn't want that. in real life, you aren't always one hundred percent sure how people feel about you unless they tell you and even then they could be lying, just vibes would be most realistic I guess. overall excited !! very excited.
Seconding this! I love when I get to go into the stats screen and read little blurbs about what the other characters are thinking/feeling. Better than worrying about min-maxing points imo, and lets you focus more on choices that make sense for your character. (I have a bad habit of reloading when number goes down.)
Third-ing this! Very cool feature
๐๐ป ๐๐ป