this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2024
41 points (95.6% liked)

Games

31773 readers
1064 users here now

Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.

Weekly Threads:

What Are You Playing?

The Weekly Discussion Topic

Rules:

  1. Submissions have to be related to games

  2. No bigotry or harassment, be civil

  3. No excessive self-promotion

  4. Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts

  5. Mark Spoilers and NSFW

  6. No linking to piracy

More information about the community rules can be found here.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

So both Life is Strange and Until Dawn have what's called the butterfly effect something that's kind of a questionable concept at best but it's somewhat real. Telltale was famous for games like this as well. But yeah it's like depending on your actions it can change the story and thus play more like a movie with a different possible story. What type of game is this?

top 15 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

It’s called a branching narrative. Most common related Steam tag for finding similar games would probably be ‘choices matter’.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

They're basically an evolution of the point and click adventure. This variation is often just called a narrative game or other similar sounding names. Searching for "games like telltale" should give you a good list.

Telltale were the ones that evolved the point and click into the form it takes now just so you know. Supermassive (until dawn) made their take on the genre feel more cinematic and more like watching a movie with choices but they're ultimately still using the formula that telltale pioneered.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I'm fairly sure years ago that there was a game called alone in the dark that was very similar to this but that was long before telltale. Anything I can remember about it is that it had had fire physics and that every time you started a new level it would load up and say "last time on a loan in the dark" and then give you a tv show style rundown of what you previously done

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

That was more of a survival horror game

[–] [email protected] 21 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

CYOA - Choose Your Own Adventure. It's a genre for interactive stories where you get to make decisions that affects the story. It's also a tag on Steam

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 weeks ago

I have found "Choices Matter" also produces good results.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

They're effectively visual novels with light gameplay mechanics for navigation or making some narrative path choices. At least, that's how I felt about Until Dawn.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

When a Visual Novel and a Point & Click Adventure game love each other very much they have a special hug and a baby genre is born.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Visual Novels basically involves reading as a requirement.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

It depends. There are visual novels in which you can set them on auto and just let voice acting play out. I think there's strong similarities there, though I don't think anyone could get away with calling a Telltale style narrative game a visual novel, flat out.

But I do think they are doing similar things, they may scratch similar itches.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

Although certainly similar, the fact that these games have every scene fully animated does add to it in a way that simply reading descriptions about what's going on doesn't.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

Story/Narrative.

Telltale is the most prolific developer of these kinds of games.

Japan has had elements similar to this in visual novels for a long time. Snatcher, Policenauts, YU-NO, etc. feature the same type of gameplay but without the parts in Life is Strange where you explore in a 3d environment.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago

Like the a character will remember that type of thing and thus might actually bring it up or hold it against another character. Like Until Dawn there's a part where the gun has blanks and if you don't sacrifice the character the character the character tried to shoot won't open the door when he needs it. Which yeah that whole scene was unrealistic because blanks can still kill.