A relationship system and a secondary point system are great incentives for players to want to keep playing and supporting your game. Let’s get into how to make fantastic ones.
A relationship system is points that go up (and occasionally down) when the player makes choices relating to a love interest. They’re a way to challenge & excite the player into paying attention to the choices they make to earn free relationship increases (the player should feel like they understand what options will lead to relationship increases, based on how well they know the characters) and to reward the players for spending on bonus scenes that involve deepening their connection with love interests.
For a deep dive into Relationship Systems and how to implement them, check out Relationship Systems.
A secondary point system is a simple mechanic that players can earn based on their actions, that will compel them to make interesting choices. Just like a relationship system incentivizes investing in character connection (which in turn helps the player advance the plot), a secondary point system must be clear in how to earn it, encourage exciting choices for the player (so you’ll enjoy writing the choices yourself, and be directly tied into driving the plot. Some examples of Secondary Point systems include:
A variable called Notoriety in a mafia game, that is earned by making bold, reputation-gaining actions, and results in the player gaining bonus content like special scenes that allow them to hear mafia rumors, silence a room with their presence, and more.
A variable called Hellfire in a demon game, earned by making “naughty", chaotic actions, that lets the player throw fireballs and use commands on lower demons.
Your episode 1 is the hook that’ll tell players if they should keep reading or not. Here are our top tips for ensuring players that read your episode one turn into devoted fans.
Exciting hook - Open with a clear, exciting action moment that sucks players in and grounds us in the world!
Have an early compelling & easy to understand choice - this is an interactive game, so players need to interact early! Let them make a fun, clear choice within the first 15 taps.
Avoid lore dumps - Readers don’t have a reason to care about reading lore. Stick to character intros & actions and only spatter in lore in small bits later once players are hooked.
Show your LI faces - Readers are here to gaze at your beautiful characters! Rather than long stretches of narration, make sure you’re mostly showing off LI dialogue to highlight them. Especially consider opening the first few lines with illustration or dialogue to show characters’ faces!
Set a clear player goal - Player goals that tie plot to interacting with the LIs are often the most successful! You can tell players their goal by making an in-game mission statement, or even break the fourth wall to tell them they need to earn a certain amount of points by the end of an episode.
Premium tutorial - Teach players about bonus content by giving them an example for free, and making it an excellent one.
Relationship system tutorial - Show players how to increase their bonds with LIs, and the bonus content they’ll get when they do. It’s generally good to introduce a relationship system in the first third of the episode.
Secondary point system tutorial - Show players what your secondary point system is, and how to earn points in it, by halfway through the episode.
Lead up to one great premium - Sell players on a LI by the end of the episode, and show off one tantalizing paid premium choice.
End with a cliffhanger! - Write something surprising or dramatic that’ll make readers desperate to find out what happens next!
See these tips in action!
In this spreadsheet, choose tabs along the bottom to see sample first episode scripts of Ungodly and Slashfic.
In column E, there’s commentary from the Dorian team on the pattern this script is using in that moment to make an impact!
An example player goal screen when it’s set within the narrative (left) or when it breaks the fourth wall (right).
