discussion Do you prefer games with a linear or nonlinear story?

[Palantil]

I prefer linear games because I'm afraid of missing something. that is why i usually read walkthroughs for non-linear games.

 

[Ab1]

أفضل الألعاب الخطية هي تلك التي تركز على شخصية البطل—على الرغم من أن هذا يعتمد أيضًا على نوع اللعبة.
وعلى العكس من ذلك، أعتبر الألعاب التي تضم أكثر من ثماني شخصيات —حيث تضطر إلى التنقل بينها جميعًا— بمثابة شكل من أشكال التعذيب، خاصة عندما أكون مهتمًا بواحدة أو اثنتين منها فقط.

 

[Ab1]

The best linear games are those where the focus is on the protagonist's personality—though this also depends on the game's genre.
Conversely, I consider games featuring more than eight characters—where you are forced to cycle through all of them—to be a form of torture, especially when I am only interested in just one or two of them.

 

[Akathrowaway]

I prefer non-linear, I want to feel like I have a bit of agency in the decisions that are happening in my game. The problem with that though is it seems like 60% of those non-linear games devolve into all choices lead back to the same ending the dev had in mind anyway. However ones that feel different enough and like true different playthroughs I'll run a few times to see how each "story" goes.

 

[Schizo169]

I know I'm weird, but whenever I see "choice-driven" in a game it's almost an instant skip for me. Too many choices in life already, I play games to get away from all that, not to replicate it There have been and will be exceptions, of course, it's just that I don't really see value in replayability when it comes to adult games, especially long ones. Again, weird.

 

[MrSunDragon]

It depends on the type of game. Some games definitely feel better in a linear story line as some can expand the experience with its non linearity.

 

[Pablo25]

linear... always harem route XD

 

[YoshimiBattles]

If by nonlinear we mean multiple parallel stories going on at once, yeah, that's awesome.

 

[Hadiri]

Linear because I like seeing all the possible routes but it takes to much time on non linear.

 

[ekis]

A good linear story can be great. Hellblade 1 and 2 are incredibly stories with basically no deviation possible. But video games offer a pretty unique chance to "Shandify" a story, as explained in this old video about Fallout.

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[kavvil]

For me, I just need agency of some description, even if that agency is just the ability to fail. Non-linear games obviously achieve this since your decisions effect the ending, but linear games often achieve this with gameplay. You can obviously lose in a game and that could be what keeps me interested in figuring out to overcome a specific obstacle, but many NSFW games take a different approach where the overall story is relatively linear, but you chose what you want to experience along the way, how much, and in what order (See the game Kingdom Knight Dad or Incestual Awakening for good examples of this). Ultimately as long as feel I have some input I feel satisfied with a game, which is why Kinetic Novels never really interested me.

 

[doodle842]

I've played linear games that were good as well as nonlinear games that were good. Unfortunately, the good ones of either type seem to fall it the minority to my tastes. I will say that in harem type games choices are important because some characters i don't want a deep relationship with and don't want to be forced into it to continue game advancement.

 

[bulliedhealer]

I'm fine with non-linear games, but I do really enjoy a good linear game where I can just go from A to B having fun along the way.

 

[dyr9761]

I prefer non-linear games, but I don't mind linear games that as long as it's not VN with 0 gameplay