I tried playing around with the idea, just to satisfy my curiosity - and realized, as an early trial, it becomes too clunky to implement as a game story.

You start with "Bob", take Bob on a few adventures, then along the way you meet "Steve". There''s a transition point, you as the player take control of Steve, Bob goes on a different road. You take Steve through his paces, then you meet "Jill". Again, a transition - you now control Jill.

What happens to Bob and Steve? Are there events happening parallel to your Jill story thread, that will lead you to meet up at a future point? I, as the player, would like to know what''s going on/what happened with the other characters.

Should I, as the designer, have given the player the option of choosing if they want to change characters at the transition point? Should I allow them to pick up the storyline at those points, and play the game as the other character? Should the story be forced forward no matter what thread you choose at various points, or should the player be allowed to go back "in time" and play the various transitions?

It can be done, but you have to make a lot of options available to the player.

The biggest problem that I see, based on your question, is the issue of suspense; you automatically lose it once you''ve allowed the player to move forward. Whatever happens in the other threads, it becomes almost anticlimatic because the player knows the goal the other characters had to achieve in order for the game to end.

If you try to design it like a movie, where you jump from scene to scene, you risk losing the player''s interest in what is/was happening someplace else. It would have to be an excellent storyline and gameplay design to keep that interest going - again, this isn''t to say it can''t be done, only to stress that the style of design may detract from the gameplay itself.

But that''s only my opinion.

This idea is being explored with Suikoden3, slated for a late this year release in america, and was also played with in SagaFrontier. You could let the player pick out a character, and follow that player throughout the entire game. Play again with a different character, etc. Not such a bad idea, and better than having the outward branching on the other end, and failing with a unconditional convergence of all the plots...


-> Will Bubel
-> Machine wash cold, tumble dry.

StarCraft used multiple plot lines to fairly good effect, and that of course helped to give variance to the battles - so that will all three races, you experience fighting all of the races as opponents.

Inmate,

But in following that single character''s plotline, are we affected by the converging plotlines of the other characters?

Think of a movie, or book, with multiple events happening ("Meanwhile, back on the ranch..."). By cutting back and forth between scenes you keep the viewer/reader involved in all the various branches at once, all culminating in some epic converging point towards the end.

In a game, you usually only follow a single path to completion, with the occasional meeting with another character you might be able to play later. Are the plotlines of the characters in Suikoden dependant on each other? Do they intertwine, or are they simply different paths leading to the same goal?

Starcraft/Warcraft doesn''t really have differing plotlines; you pick a race and your goal is to win against the others. It''s more like a pyramid, with the apex representing the finishing goal and the three sides the different races and methodologies to achieving that goal.

It is an interesting idea - allowing a player to become any of the main characters at any or specific given points, then following that point to another where they can choose to change characters yet again.

Maybe at these transition points you can choose an "update" feature, which will give a cutscene cinematic that gives a visual representation of what the newly chosen character has achieved for that plot segment. This way you don''t lose out on learning what''s already been done, but at the same time you''re not following a completely linear path.

Anon,

Weren''t they used in tandem - grouping? Did you have the ability to play as someone other than Squall?

In Final Fantasy VIII (8, for you non-romans), the story followed Squall (shutters at horrible character development) and the infinitely more interesting Laguna (sighs with contentment over well-developed character). Squall and company would have sort of hallucinations every now and then that would show them (and the player) what was going on in Laguna''s plotline. The great thing about this is that it created suspense for the player (asking questions like wtf is Laguna?) and allowed the player to play as different protagonists.

WildArms featured three playable characters. They hook up as a team, but in the very beginning they are separate and you can switch between them.

There are 10 types of people in this world - those who understand binary and those who don''t.