Hey guys! I am working on a new story and I am about to publish but I just want to know from other’s perspectives about Choices/Point System. I am still debating if I want to add choices, my other two stories have point systems that affect the plot.
But for my new story, I don’t want to add choices that affect the story because it is more a “visual” story than an “interactive” but at the same time, I do want to add choices. I am super super indecisive
I would love to hear your opinions about choices/point system or no choices/point system in stories! If you like them or not
In my opinion I like choices whatever they do in the plot. Sometimes it’s nice to have a random funny choice that doesn’t necessarily affect the plot. If it affects the plot, I could also enjoy it but I usually like stories that have one main plot. I like the point system but if it makes me unable to unlock too much scenes, I’m sad hahah. What I mainly like about the point system is I get to choose how I act with friends or LI!
Hope it helped!
I dont mind choices at all, if your story is more of a visual then you should do what you want! Personally i love to read what the author has to give instead of me making decisions.
It’s up to you! I prefer not to include the points system because I want to tell the story how I visualize it I think if you really do want to include choices, then you can make them unimportant ones?
Same here! I just do small changes not alot, I don’t like it when you cc and move on then the next character goes on and so on I created a menu if anyone wants to cc they can or just skip it
I agree point systems takes forever and I am tired of counting track how points in each episode Yeah I was thinking about adding unimportant ones but I don’t know what kind though, I am out of ideas
My choices so far is full cc of mc, li & family in a game menu, hair & makeup & outfits - the basics
I like choices, but as you said your story is more visual and less interactive, take advantage of this phase of wanting to make a story different from the others you’ve made.
So, I took a poll with like 400+ responses and from what it seems, is that 89% of readers do like choices. And it seems that the most popular amount is about 3-4 choices per chapter. I asked them a few questions on it though so if you want to see the data it’s free to view! Here’s the link: Dizzy’s Episode Community Stats (It also covers love interests, gem choices, demographics, and there like 30 slides of data. So I really recommend looking through it!).
But I know that there’s a few options! I read The Lake by j.miley and she gave readers a choice at the beginning to play with choices and a points system or just read as she intended it. So you can definitely check it out and see how she did it, it would mean a lot more work with making that available. (honestly I loved this because now readers might be inclined to replay, like me, to see what the other version of the story may be).
Or, you can involved choices that don’t affect the story as much, simply giving readers options on how to reply to certain things so they can be attentive and feel they have some pull in the story!
Oh yeah, I remember taking those questions a while back! That is a lot of readers that love a lot of choices Ima take a look at it again
I never thought about that, maybe I could do that but it sounds like more work, I will def check out her story and see what you mean!
I think I might go with that to 3-4 choices throughout each episode to make it more interactive since a lot of people prefer choices. I also took a poll on my Instagram story more people would like to see choices so I guess I can quickly add them
That’s so perfect! Oh and ik right it’s a ton of readers that at least enjoy choices. But you should definitely read The Lake! I’m sure what she did was write the script chapter once, then add it in as a duplicate in the same chapter and just used the if/elif every chapter to jump the readers to their version they chose. But definitely will be more work. If you think it’s worth it then I think it might be the best of both worlds!
jk jk 
I think if you really do want to include choices, then you can make them unimportant ones?
