Single playthrough or branching paths?

[cantus]

Assume a story-driven game with 15 sex scenes across multiple love interests and no expectation of monogamy.
All other things being equal, do you want to experience the whole story and all 15 scenes in one play through?
Or do you prefer branching paths to explore different combinations of love interests?

 

[jackoff]

one play through - there's too many games out there to replay stuff

 

[jotaro]

I think for me I just hate the feeling of missing something, or not being able to keep track of where to go back to see another story path. There’s also that harems are the best.

 

[Gravespawn]

I like Branching path when it very different, not just slightly different scenes.

 

[ElCactus]

The eternal struggle between FOMO and the need for decisions to matter. I don't want to be 100% on a railroad and only clicking "next", but if I'm missing entire interesting characters, I'm also not happy. If you go for multiple playthroughs, at least don't make me grind like a mofo again

 

[babeedee]

I only love branching paths if the gameplay is fun.
See Sengoku Rance

 

[bobbobby23603]

I think you should be able to experience basically all scenes in one playthrough (Harem endings basically). Branching paths is fine in case some aren't interested in some of the characters. But there should always be a way to see all scenes in one playthrough.

 

[miniboss]

Branching paths is fun in theory but too often it slows development and overwhelms the dev until many of them just give up or neglect to update paths.

 

[nexus55555]

Mostly one playthrough, hate to think that missed something and there are so many great games that i have a hard time getting multible playthroughs done.

 

[LadyCeleste]

Either single playthrough or have two distinct paths that don't cross over (like Love and Corruption paths) so you can just go with one or the other at the start and never change.

Having a great number of variations of scenes or conditions for unlocking scenes is not a good thing with games like this.

 

[MattShizzle]

Branching. If it's one path it's a kinetic novel. See my signature - kinetic novels suck and aren't games.

 

[podllboq]

One playthrough is generally enough.
I'd only consider a replay if I can be sure that I can get an entirely different experience. I think very few adult games can provide that. Good Girl Gone Bad is an example that comes to mind.
If it's only to see a few other scenes with a couple of side characters within generally the same story, then definitely no.

 

[pianodrama]

Branching if the game is fast to replay (usually the case with Ren'Py titles)
However, I can think of games where I know what path I want to get on, but the choices are such that I have no idea what I'm supposed to choose to get on that path

 

[MattShizzle]

I don't really care to see all paths. Just the ones I'm interested in or maybe even only 1, but being set in one (or worse, you either get 1 or you lose) sucks.

 

[Gman851]

I think for me I just hate the feeling of missing something, or not being able to keep track of where to go back to see another story path. There’s also that harems are the best.

I have to agree with you there. Even though there are a lot of games out there. When it comes to games that can have different endings it is worth doing more than 1 play through of the game in order to see what happens in the game when choosing the different paths

 

[Guy90]

One playthrough, most games just aren't worth investing that much time into.

 

[Lewddriack]

I like when u can have multiple paths.

 

[Msm]

IMO single playthrough would be best

 

[cantus]

Interesting... shortly after I started this thread I found a similar one: Do you prefer games with multiple choices that affect the story or a linear story where choices don't affect anything?

but... on that thread people were about 60-70% wanting choices that matter and here so far it's about 80% single playthrough.
I can only assume it's because I qualified it with a fixed number of scenes and no monogamy...

 

[eezergoode]

Those really are two different questions, though. "Choices that affect the story" doesn't always mean branching the story to the point that getting all of the good scenes require another play-through. There is a huge difference between "Choosing girl A locks you out of girl B's path", which would require a second play-through if you actually like both girls, and "You can choose to bang girl A, girl B, or both". Both of these choices can affect the story, but in the second option, your choice wouldn't require a second play-through because who is going to choose NOT to bang the girls they like if it doesn't lock out another part of the story?