discussion Story elements that make you STOP playing a game?

[herot32]

I'm not talking about NTR or gay or some fetish thing.

I'm talking about things like the below for me:

* Really, really, really bad writing. This is most noticeable when guys start writing a story like they think they're Quentin Tarantino. "You're a Mafia kingpin who needs to kill the other Mafia guy. Also you fuck your own kids." There are good examples of this stuff, like the stuff in The Guardian and similar games, but there's also a LOT of really bad ones out there where people just think "hey, I like porn, I like Guy Ritchie movies, what if I could just write a story like that?"

* Nothing happening. Just...nothing happens. At all. Ever. Long, elaborate interpersonal relationship stuff and discussions, but then...nothing. Especially noticeable when paired with the first one - bad writing - because there's nothing worse than listen to a dev talk to themselves through two characters for 5,000 words and then have nothing happen.

* Terrible humor. It's one thing if it's supposed to be a bad joke, that's fine. But humor is HARD to do well, and when you try and make something legitimately funny but fall short, it's painful.

* Characters singing & dancing to songs with the lyrics written out. It's kinda cringe. This is especially bad when a character is into music that they would not legitimately be into. Like "oh you're a 17 year old Korean girl from Portland? Surely you sing along to Def Leppard songs in the car. You're a balding 60 year old white banker? Your karaoke song is Kendrick Lamar, of course." It's just....it's painful.

 

[IFF01]

Stories that drag on in dialog, where it takes along time and they dont really say much.

 

[quotehorse]

For me, it's immersion-breakingly bad grammar or spelling. I can put up with an error or two here and there, and I do know a lot of devs don't speak english as a first language, but holy crap sometimes the grammar is so bad that it makes otherwise great story and animation unbearable.

 

[Redyscom]

There are 5 things that make me hate and sometimes abandon games:

- The pace of the game, a very fast pace and no or very poor story, basically a porn gallery of not very good quality that weighs 3 - 5g or a slow pace with a story that is not interesting at all, if I wanted to see something like that I would watch Grey's Anatomy.

- Blocked content behind content that you don't like, this is very specific and it is basically against Warlock and Boobs, that a lot of content is behind gay content, it doesn't bother me that there is gay content in the game, it bothers me that it blocks content that I want to see.

- Poorly worked interface, ugly and unpleasant to use, many sandboxes sin with this and it is an important aspect.

- Too many spelling and grammatical errors, as someone whose main language is not English, this is especially painful. I can put up with some, the writer is a human being who can make mistakes, but when they are frequent it sucks.

- The nonsense... BOOM now there's magic! BOOM now you're a teacher! BOOM now you're a millionaire!... all in the same story and without any cohesion or organic development between the events, they're just there to add more background characters so you can fuck them once and forget about them. Basically asking you to skip the text to get to the scenes because all that stuff is irrelevant.

 

[Kernist]

If you are interested in opinion of others then it is covered mostly in this thread:
https://lewdcorner.com/threads/what-non-sexual-stuff-makes-you-quit-a-porn-game.15662/

 

[AlBetGam]

Stories that drag on in dialog, where it takes along time and they dont really say much.

Special nod to some Russian games where the protagonists go through whole essays of pseudo-philosophical blather in their internal monologue without saying anything interesting.

 

[Rads95]

In my case, I left the games if:

- Games with a lot of dialogue that lead nowhere

- They add stupid grind that takes hours just to get you to play more

- I don't like how the story develops and ends up being boring

 

[Loliholic]

Unreadable stugg, starting from bad grammar, terrible translations, slang, speech defects, etc.
English is not my native language, so i need real english to understand whats going on.

Losers. I dont play a pushover, whimp, sub protagonist...on the other hand i also dont play assholes.

Mass produced characters...not only the looks should be diverse.

Story bugs and logic errors.

 

[TBG]

Special nod to some Russian games where the protagonists go through whole essays of pseudo-philosophical blather in their internal monologue without saying anything interesting.

not just russian, seen a few from vietnam that had simular issues. might a lost in translation issue!

 

[Suna pana]

Story is the very important to play the game I playing game only for good story

 

[grimsbysteve]

For me, it's immersion-breakingly bad grammar or spelling. I can put up with an error or two here and there, and I do know a lot of devs don't speak english as a first language, but holy crap sometimes the grammar is so bad that it makes otherwise great story and animation unbearable.

Oh god yes, I can forgive occasionally mixing up "there", "they're" and "their" and some spelling mistakes, because we are very international here, but if I have to re-read a section three or more times to parse what's being said, that's a strong nope.

Although I keep coming back to it, to try and push through (because I'm interested by the premise of the series) this is what stops me every time in Enslaver The Beginning

* Really, really, really bad writing.

Somehow this often goes hand in hand with the first one, it's almost like people who can't structure a story also don't have a clue about good use of language. Who'd have thought?

* Terrible humor. It's one thing if it's supposed to be a bad joke, that's fine. But humor is HARD to do well, and when you try and make something legitimately funny but fall short, it's painful.

I found this with 23 Sisters, it might just be my politics and outlook on the world, but this went for (somewhat) partisan insult humor that was clearly aimed at real world targets, but wouldn't have been funny the other way either, and then kept cramming it in beyond the point it could be dismissed. I'm not talking about the running joke in Doc5252's games with the pineapple pizza either, that's just a nice little easter egg.

- The nonsense... BOOM now there's magic! BOOM now you're a teacher! BOOM now you're a millionaire!

Again 23 Sisters had this issue for me.

 

[User_111574]

Stupid and most importantly boring plot. If the story is stupid, I simply delete the game, if it is boring - there is a risk that I will fall asleep (that's not a joke!) during gameplay.
An example of an idiotic plot for me is 23 Sisters.
An example of a boring plot is Grandma's House.
And yes, if the VN storyline turns into a fuckfest, that gets boring quickly too. To me, it's boring and uninteresting.

 

[Magooo]

A bad or boring story makes me stop playing a game if the game also has nothing to offer otherwise.

 

[Flamypaisen]

When they break the immersion too much, or when the game tries too hard to be funny to the point where it doesn't take itself seriously.

 

[Boberson1234]

Story is the biggest one! When its poorly written you might as well just be looking at an image gallery with subtle changes.

 

[MoesephMoeseph's icon]

I can basically overcome any bad elements if there is enough sex to break it up.

I think the only game I started and didn't finish was MIST, because it got too tedious. Well, I think my saves may have gotten borked when I was like 80% done, and didn't feel like redoing all the tediousness, can't remember

 

[uncleben28]

For me its that part of the story when it ends. Really kills it for me

 

[Seo In-guk]

I hardly see the story, if the story is boring then I omit it but to abandon a game there are three ways: it is a non-sexual game, the sandbox is difficult and the other is that it is not avoidable, these two that I mentioned I abandoned the game

 

[deviator555]

It's not necessarily a story element, but rather how they tell the story: I really dislike if a game fails to "show rather than tell". A pertinent example of this I've come across recently is "My New Family". Most of the game time is spent in tedious dialogue where nothing ever happens on the screen. The game is supposed to be a VISUAL novel and I wish they used the medium more appropriately. I think you can be much more elegant in how you tell different aspects of your story.

 

[malvius]

"lol random xd" crap, like how in 23 sisters it just kept going off the rails, then doubled and tripled down, or some parts of the guardian